As soon as they had done eating, Mr Barlow took up a book, and asked Tommy whether he would read them a story out of it? but he, looking a little ashamed, said he had never learned to read. "I am very sorry for it," said Mr Barlow, "because you lose a very great pleasure; then Harry shall read to you." Harry accordingly took up the book and read the following story:-- "THE GENTLEMAN AND THE BASKET-MAKER." "There was, in a distant part of the world, a rich man, who lived in a fine house, and spent his whole time in eating, drinking, sleeping, and amusing himself. As he had a great many servants to wait upon him, who treated him with the greatest respect, and did whatever they were ordered, and, as he had never been taught the truth, nor accustomed to hear it, he grew very proud, insolent, and capricious, imagining that he had a right to command all the world, and that the poor were only born to serve and obey him. "Near this rich man's house there lived an honest and industrious poor man, who gained his livelihood by making little baskets out of dried reeds, which grew upon a piece of marshy ground close to his cottage. But though he was obliged to labour from morning to night, to earn food enough to support him, and though he seldom fared better than upon dry bread, or rice, or pulse, and had no other bed than the remains of the rushes of which he made baskets, yet was he always happy, cheerful, and contented; for his labour gave him so good an appetite, that the coarsest fare appeared to him delicious; and he went to bed so tired that he would have slept soundly even upon the ground. Besides this, he was a good and virtuous man, humane to everybody, honest in his dealings, always accustomed to speak the truth, and therefore beloved and respected by all his neighbours.