"Why should it be well, Mabel?" said Colonel Ingham. "For my part, I should prefer to remain in my own room, more especially as I consider my armchair to be more suited to the comfort of one already on the downward path in life than is the kitchen table, where we should have to sit should we invade the premises of our friends below." "I was thinking," said Mabel, "of the manner in which James Watt when a child invented the steam-engine, from observing the motion of the top of the teakettle; and as we are to read about Watt this afternoon I thought we might be in a more fit condition to understand his invention, and might more fully comprehend his frame of mind while perfecting his great work, should we also fix our eyes and minds on the top of the teakettle in Ellen's kitchen." "Mabel, my child," said Uncle Fritz, "you talk like a book, and a very interesting one at that; but I think, as the youngest of us would say, that you are just a little off in your remarks. And as I observe that Clem, who is going to read this afternoon, desires to deliver a sermon of which your conversation seems to be the text, I will request all to listen to him before we consider seriously vacating this apartment, however poor it may be,"--and he glanced fondly around at the comfortable arrangements that everywhere pervaded the study,--"and seek the regions below." "I only wanted to say," began Clem, "that although Watt did on one occasion (in his extreme youth) look at a teakettle with some interest, he was not in the habit, at the time when he devoted most thought to the steam-engine, of having a teakettle continually before him that he might gain inspiration from observing the steam issue from its nose. And, as Watt dispensed with this aid, I have no doubt that we may do so as well, contenting ourselves with the results of the experiments in the vaporization of water, which Ellen is now conducting in the form of tea. Besides all this, however, I do want to say some things, before we read aloud this afternoon (I hope this isn't really too much like a sermon), about the steam-engine and the part that Watt had in perfecting it." At this point the irrepressible Mabel was heard to whisper to Bedford, who sat next her: "Wasn't it curious that the same mind which grasped the immense capabilities of the steam-engine should have been able also to construct such a delicate lyric as 'How doth the little busy bee Improve each shining hour'?"