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them from her favorites, bore very small but very 
pretty flowers. She wondered she never had ob¬ 
served them before, but Mary had yet to learn that 
the most common things, which are generally the 
most valuable, are often thought unworthy of no¬ 
tice, while they may in reality be quite as curiously 
and wonderfully made as the most rare and showy. 
Mary little knew that the air which she breathed 
every moment was a real thing, as truly as the 
houses and trees that stood encircled by it, and that 
it was made up of several things which could all be 
separated by the ingenuity of man. She thought 
the air was nothing. She was astonished indeed 
when she was told that if the pressure of the out¬ 
ward air was taken away, that which is imprisoned 
within her would burst forth and tear her body into 
ten thousand pieces. She began to think there was 
no end to wonders ; and as long as she lived and 
