slanting through the interlacing boughs, lay lovingly on the water, so that every pool was a clear cup of molten gold; for Amber Water, as its name denotes, has a hue in sunshine like bronze and gold. Ages ago terrible volcanic forces made mad work here; they rent the solid peaks apart, and flung huge masses of rock in fantastic piles. Time has beautified ruin: every rock is covered with the richest moss, until not an inch of the stone itself can be seen, while graceful

around each velvet-draped boulder.

From the Rock the road wandered to the Glen's head; here towered oak trees clad in russet, spotted with yellow and red, and showering down golden and brown acorns with prodigal liberality. Here they spread their table on a mound of moss, a fairy hummock, dome of some elf king's palace. It was no sacrilege, for they conformed to fairy ways, and had sassafras leaves of scarlet and primrose hue for plates whereon to set forth their pepper-sauce. They had also gourdcups which they filled at Amber Spring, and they left tribute for the squirrels and birds, on their table, and laid a garland on the Spring, as an offering to its guardian sprite. By thus conforming to elfin laws, Mother Goose folk make joyous excursions.

"Address yourselves now," said Bobby, "to climbing down Amber Water Glen. Curiosity will carry you down; sheer necessity will force you up. Do as I do, and hold fast to your alpenstocks."

Bobby swung himself around two or three trees, and was then standing with the Old Woman and the Dame, shut out from all the world besides. Tall trees encircled and crowded the glen, making cool dewy shadows in the hottest noons. The Amber spring rushed down the glade, now leaping in cascades; now lying in calm root-locked pools. The sun,

Steadying their steps with their staffs, swinging themselves down from stone to stone by the lithe branches of the trees, they stood where they saw above them twelve separate cascades, and as many emerald cups, where golden waters lay at peace. Here a huge rock towered boldly up from the lowest depths, as perfect a pyramid as Cheops ever fashioned; while one great gray stone, fringed with tiny ferns, but alone of all bare of moss, showed front and tower as of an old world cathedral. The glen was full of the rush and thunder of waters; the wanderers had gone into a strange, new world of shade and sound. Still they climbed down by rocks and trees, finding as Bobby Shafto and Virgil say, that human beings have a singular facility for getting down. Avernus.

But out of the depths of Amber Glen they climbed, and rising high as erst they had gone low, stood on the topmost peak of Cloud Point, with the world in rose and silver light far beneath their feet. They had gone where only the hardy pines, and lichens, and flaming sassafras could come. Out of the glade they heard fairy laughter echoing up to their cloudy pinnacle; and saw the merry eyes of brownies and elves gleaming at them from crevices of rock. Here the lichens grow into black and gray baskets that will hold a gill apiece. Dame Crumb filled hers with trophies from the glen.

"Are those ferns?" asked Bobby. "No, they are the trees of Paradise," replied the Dame.

Evening all too soon after such a day

sician of Boston, finding that in his unwearied efforts to save other people's lives he was endangering his own with the amount of labor he performed, sought a change of climate, both to benefit his health and to get away from his importunate patients. So he bought a ranch at some distance from the pretty little city of San José, California, upon which he built a nice house. Here he had lived several years when the events of our story occurred. His family consisted of himself and wife, his wife's mother, called Grandma Babb, and two sons, Henry, fourteen years of age, and Alfred, twelve.

One afternoon in the month of November, the two boys ran up the broad avenue leading to the house, and reached the sitting room, where their mother and grandmother were busy sewing. They rushed into the room exclaiming, "Hurra! mother, we have four days' vacation; no more school till next week!"

"Yes, and don't I wish it was no more school forever! What use can a fellow ever make of chemistry, geology, and all the other tiresome 'ologies, who expects to raise wheat for a living?" said Henry, as he gave his books an emphatic toss into the corner of the room.

"O Henry, how often must I tell you that the most useful labor is that which is guided by knowledge?" his mother ex claimed, with reproof in her tones.

"I don't quite wish what Henry does," Alfred said, "for I don't want to grow up a dunce, and have people look down upon me because I don't know as much as they do; but it is nice to have a holiday once in a while "

an approving smile; but Grandma Babb remarked, in her old fashioned way, "Them ain't the right feelings to have about getting learning, son. It's all for yerself, and not for the doing of good to others."

"That will come by and by, Grandma," said Mrs. Hackett, who was rather partial to this younger son, because he was studious, and bade fair to carry out the ambitious hopes of his mother; while Grandma Babb could not help taking into her heart of hearts the eldest, who, with all his carelessness and dislike to school, was generous and truthful.

Henry replied, "Well, we won't spend any precious time in argufying. Let's see. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving; on Friday, ah, we'll go out shooting; on Saturday we'll drive over to Clem Lanson's, according to promise, and the rest of to-day I'll spend around the place."

66

Say, mother, who are you going to have here to-morrow?" asked Alfred.

The mother's eyes drooped, and her tones were full of sadness, as she answered, "No one, my dear."

"Going to any place, then?"

"No; can't you be contented to spend the day with us, at home?"

"Of course I can, but it will be the first Thanksgiving ever known in this house without a frolic in the evening."

"What's the matter?"

"Don't bother your mother, children; don't you see she's worried?" answered Grandma Babb.

"I might as well tell them at once, mother," Mrs. Hackett said. "We must leave this dear home, boys, and find

another. We now have had two dry seasons and scarcely any crops. Our expenses have been heavy, and so much outgo and but little income from the ranch have crippled your father's resources. We are not so badly off as we might be, for we can move to some larger town, where your father can resume the practice of medicine; but I love this home, and I dread the effects of city life upon his health :" and the tears flowed down her cheeks as she finished speaking.

"Why, mother," exclaimed Alfred, "there's nothing much to cry about! I think it would be jolly fine to live in the city: so much to see, so many places to go to; a life in the city for me, I say.”

Henry put his arm around his mother, and said, "Never mind, mother dear, I will soon be old enough to work for you and father, and to take care of you, and then you shall live where you please."

Such a large promise called a smile to Mrs. Hackett's lips, as she kissed them both and sent them out, while she sat down to write a letter.

The two boys stepped into the porch, where they met Jim, the gardener, who said, "Shure, Mister Henry, and ye'll be delighted to find how well your young orange trees are growing. They bear the open grounds first rate; and the vines are that full that ye'll have a fine mess of straw berries for your Thanksgiving dinner."

Alfred sat down on the steps to dream pictures of city life, while Henry walked around the place, reviewing every vine and tree whose growth he had affectionately watched, and thinking sadly of parting with them as from beloved friends. It was his great desire to become a farmer, and he foolishly looked upon acquiring a thorough education as so many years cut off from the attainment of his object. And now it seemed farther away than ever, for he could not, as his father had promised, take charge of this farm on leaving school, and he scarcely liked the dull prospect of commencing on some other man's place as hired help, to work his way up by years

of hard toil. Then he fell to thinking what he might do, were he a man, to help his father out of his present troubles, and there mused until interrupted by the sound of the supper bell.

The boys spent Thanksgiving day pleasantly but quietly with their parents, and on Friday morning, taking their doublebarrelled English guns, Christmas presents from their kind father, equipped themselves for a hunt. Their mother's parting words were, "Now, Henry and Alfred, do not go near the Thicket. You may be poisoned again, as you were once before, and it is my positive command that you keep away from it."

The Thicket, as it was called, was a heavy growth of brush, which spread over a piece of waste land on the southwestern portion of Dr. Hackett's ranch, where grew also in abundance the wild oak, so common in California, which poisons the skin of almost every one who comes in contact with it. The boys promised, and started off. It was a beautiful day. The soft winds stirred the vines and trees, and breathed the fragrance of clustering flowers and ripe fruits, while the air was redolent with the music of birds and the hum of insects. The boys made a circuit of several miles, bagged some small game, ate their lunch on a mossy hillside, aud four o'clock in the afternoon found them returning in the neighborhood of the Thicket, when an animal suddenly crossed their path.

"A deer! a deer!" cried Henry, as he quickly followed and fired. The shot failed; the frightened animal turned on its track, and made for the Thicket. Henry shouted, "Fire, Al! my shot's all gone! Mark west!" Alfred fired, and the deer vanished under the brush. "I think it's wounded," he said. Both boys in the excitement of pursuit, forgot their mother's prohibition, and plunged into the Thicket, but a few bunches of the deer's hair on some brambles was all the trace that was left of their game. Alfred said, "Pshaw! If I had dreamed any deer were around, I would have brought the dogs. Come, Hen,