"I have so many things I like to do when I go home after work, that I don't deserve praise for not being idle."
"I wish I had anything I liked to do when work is over," returned Tom; "but I have nothing to do but play, and I soon get tired of that."
"So do I," rejoined Ned. "I like a game of ball or cricket every now and then as well as anybody; but it is a great waste of time, to say the least of it, to spend all one's spare hours in play; besides, as you say, we get tired, and do not enjoy play if we have too much of it."
"What do you do of an evening, that is so pleasant?" inquired Tom.
"Why I keep our little garden in order;—that takes up a good deal of time; and I write a copy, and do a sum or two, and read the Bible to grandmother."
"I should like that very well," observed Tom, "all except reading the Bible."
"Oh, do not say so!" exclaimed Ned; "surely you do not mean it."
"I dare say," rejoined Tom, "that I should like the Bible well enough if I could understand it; but it's so hard! You understand it all, I suppose?"
"Oh, dear no! that I do not; but grandmother sometimes explains what is hard, and tells me a great many pleasing things about the manners of the country where our Saviour and his Apostles lived. I never am happier than when I read to her, and she talks to me about what I have read."
"Well," said Tom, "mother hears me read a chapter now and then, but she always seems to think it a trouble; and so I read as fast as I can, to get it the sooner over. Father commonly says, he's too tired to listen."