"I do not think so," said his father. "Some of the hardest words I have ever seen are the shortest. I know one little word, with only two letters in it, that very few children, or men either, can always speak." "Oh, I suppose it is borne French or German word; isn't it, father?" "No: it is English; and you may think it strange, but it is just as hard to pronounce in one language as another." "Only two letters! What can it be?" cried both the children. "The hardest word," replied their father, "I have ever met with in any language--and I have learned several--is a little word of two letters--N-o, no." "Now you are making fun of us!" cried the children: "that is one of the easiest words in the world." And, to prove that their father was mistaken, they both repeated, "N-o, no; n-o, no," a great many times. "I am not joking in the least. I really think it is the hardest of all words. It may seem easy enough to you to-night, but perhaps you cannot pronounce it to-morrow." "I can always say it, I know I can;" said George with much confidence--"NO! Why, it is as easy to say it as to breathe." "Well, George, I hope you will always find it as easy to pronounce as you think it is now, and that you will be able to speak it when you ought to." In the morning George went bravely to school, a little proud that he could pronounce so hard a word as "Popocatepetl." Not far frown the schoolhouse was a large pond of very deep water, where the boys used to skate and slide when it was frozen over. Now, the night before, Jack Frost had been busy changing the surface of the pond into beautiful crystals of ice; and when the boys went to school in the morning they found the pond as smooth and clear as glass. The day was cold, and they thought that by noon the ice would be strong enough to skate upon. As soon as school was dismissed the boys all ran to the pond,--some to try the ice, and others merely to see it. "Come, George," said William Green; "now we shall have a glorious time sliding." George hesitated, and said he did not believe it was strong enough, for it had been frozen over only one night. "Oh, come on!" said another boy: "I know it is strong enough. I have known it to freeze over in one night, many a time, so it would bear: haven't you, John?" "Yes," answered John Brown: "it did so one night last winter; and it wasn't so cold as it was last night, either." But George still hesitated, for his father had forbidden him to go on the ice without special permission. "I know why George won't go," said John; "he's afraid he might fall down and hurt himself." "Or the ice might crack," said another; "and the noise would frighten him. Perhaps his mother might not like it." "He's a coward, that's the reason he won't come."