"I saw no dark forms when we entered,' said Redbird.

"Your eyes,' I said, 'were not then accustomed to the peculiar light of the place. Those are the gloom-fairies. They would gladly be employed here; but that is impossible, because they are the enemies of the dear young people whom Santa Claus loves so well. They dwell in the abodes of darkness, and have no sunshine, except what they are able to steal from the faces of children. But they must first obtain an entrance into their homes.

"In order to do this, they plant near them a vinegar-bush. This is invisible, and if not nourished by the breath of the gloom-fairies, and the tears of children, it will die; but if allowed to live, it will grow, and spread, and overshadow the house.

"It then affords shelter to numberless gloom-fairies, who sit in the branches, and watch for an opportunity, when children pass, to steal the sunshine off their faces, and cork it up in little bottles which they carry under their wings. They also shake down upon them, from the leaves, a disagreeable dust, which disfigures every face it touches.

"These gloom-fairies avoid all cheerful, pleasant sounds. They cannot live within hearing of music, especially the music of children's singing. Nothing, therefore, is so sure to prevent them from planting their bad bush as a hearty laugh or a lively song. Hearing these, they scowl, spread their dark wings, and fly away.

"It is my delight, little Redbird,' I said, 'to flutter about, unseen, among children; and this I do frequently. I listen to their voices, I join in their sports. And when among them appears a sour, cross-looking child, I think, “Aha, aha! so you have been under the vinegar-bush!" But when one comes with bright eyes and a happy song, I smile and say, my little cheerybird! the gloom-fairies have stolen no sunshine from your face!"'

“Ah,

"I then drew a feather from the wing of my little friend, and, after breathing upon the end, held it up before her. She beheld there the picture of a little girl in red, with braided hair.

"It is myself,' she said, ‘all but the face. That is bad.'

"The face is yours too,' I said, 'just as it appears when the gloomfairies have stolen its sunshine, and have shaken over you the branches of the vinegar-bush. There is one now growing near your home. Growing and spreading fast, for it is watered daily by the tears of a child.'

"And you may be sure, my children," said Runa the story-teller, "that what I told Redbird concerning the vinegar-bush is really true. For I have known its branches to be shaken even over the heads of grown people.

"But, as I perceived by the breathing of my little companion that she had remained a sufficient time in Mistiland,- for long draughts of the air are not healthful, I conducted her back, by rapid flights, to the bower by the mountain springs whence we came. And there, in her own proper form, I left her upon the grass-first, however, throwing her into a deep sleep, for she was very weary.

"Meanwhile, her father had been searching anxiously for his little child, but nowhere in all the valley could she be found. As he stood beneath an apple-tree, wiping his brow and sighing heavily, I perched overhead, and sang something like this:

"High among the mountains,

Near the bubbling fountains,
Where the trees bend low,
Where the wild flowers grow,
''Mid the shadows deep,

A weary child doth sleep.

Gay red robes doth the maiden wear;

She hath ribbons of red in her braided hair.'

"Then, as he moved not, I sang again : —

"'Where two brooks are flowing,

Where dark pines are growing,

Where, among the rocks,

The shepherd leads his flocks

Up the rugged steep,

Thy little one doth sleep.

Gay red robes doth the maiden wear;

She hath ribbons of red in her braided hair.'

"It seemed to her father, however, not that a little bird had sung to him where to find his child, but that he himself remembered the day when she went with him to lead his flocks, and they sat together by the mountain springs.

"Who knows,' cried he, 'but the child is there, and has fallen asleep under the trees?'

"He took his staff, passed quickly over the hills, and along the fragrant meadows, and soon, by following the shepherd's path, he found Little Redjacket sleeping in the bower.

"When the child awoke and saw her father bending over her, she sprang to her feet, looked eagerly around, and exclaimed, 'Am I not a little redbird?'

"To be sure you are,' cried the shepherd, taking her in his arms; 'you are my own little red-bird.'

"Where is the fairy queen?' she asked earnestly.

“But her father only kissed her and smiled; for he had often heard her prattling of fairies, and supposed she had been dreaming. Perceiving, therefore, that he thought but lightly of the matter, she said very little, but walked silently by his side, thinking of her wonderful journey.

"But upon arriving home she proclaimed to the whole household where she had been, and what she had heard, and all that she had seen. Whereupon they also smiled, and said, 'The child has had a dream.'

"At this she grew angry, and was just upon the point of bursting into tears, but, remembering the gloom-fairies, she laughed instead, and was soon after heard singing loudly from room to room.

"And ever after, not a day passed that she did not sing a song in every

room of the house. And at last people inquired, Why, what has come over Little Redjacket, to make her so agreeable? She's a real little song-bird in the house, and as sweet as a posy!'

"Then she would smile, and say: 'Ah, you would not believe me; but it was all true that I told; for do you not see that I have driven the gloomfairies away?'"

Runa the story-teller paused here, and, very quietly turning in the direction of the window, raised her wand slowly, and pointed it towards the listener there.

Kluhn started, and, in his haste to hide himself, fell from the branch, and dropped upon the ground where the descent of the mountain was steep and slippery. He rolled over and over, over and over, over and over, down the dizzy heights, which it seemed to him were to have no end. And all the while, as he rolled, strange, deep voices from inside the mountain seemed to mock and laugh at him.

At last, after a sudden plunge from a rock to level ground, he started up, looked about him, and rubbed his eyes, like one awaking from sleep.

The sun was just rising, and what was his surprise to find, after turning his eyes in every direction, that he was still by the swamp where he had the night before sat down to rest, after his father had thrown an old shoe at him, and he had run from the shop. He had slipped from the bank, and rolled down to the very edge. of the swamp, where the frogs were making exactly such sounds as had seemed to mock him from inside the mountain.

Kluhn sat there in the morning sunshine, thinking, his eyes fixed upon the ground, like one trying to solve some difficult puzzle. He recalled to his mind, in due order, all that he had seen and heard. But, being slow of thought, the sun had risen high in the heavens before he had quite persuaded himself that since he left the shop but one night had passed, that he had slept through the night beneath the tree where he sat down to rest, and that of Runa the story-teller and her hut of green boughs, and of the jolly little packman, he had but dreamed.

“Ah," said he, as he picked his hat out of the dirt, "if only the bellowstopped cap had been true! But I see now it was all a dream."

Having made this quite clear to himself, he said: "I will return to my father's shop. They will gladly welcome me, coming with something so well worth telling. And it may be, after all, that it is no more a dream than their own fine tales."

Upon arriving at his father's shop, he listened for a while at the door, peeping through a knot-hole. His father sat with folded arms, although it was Saturday, and much to be done.

"Ah, if I only had my boy back!" said he, with a heavy sigh. "Why did I drive him away? He might have taken a turn. He would, without doubt, have become, in time, a fine, industrious young man. O, if he were only back again!"

"Yes," said the trunk-pedler, "I wish he were back. It was something to have a person at hand to whom one always might talk!"

"And a person that could tell good music," said the blind fiddler. "And then," observed the wooden-legged soldier, "he was such a good listener!"

"And such a good believer!" cried the old sea-captain. "Nothing was too strange for him. He was ready to swallow anything, - flying horses, sea-serpents, dragons, horned monsters, — it mattered not to him!"

Kluhn here glanced at the student, and perceived that, although thinking with a sad face of the missing one, he was, nevertheless, in an absent, dreamy way, drawing the figures as fast as mentioned.

He saw, marked out on the wall, his own face, with mouth wide open, just upon the point of swallowing a flying horse, behind which were seaserpents, dragons, and horned monsters, waiting to go down. This so amused him, that he burst into the room with a hearty laugh.

Never wanderer had a warmer welcome! And Kluhn had the satisfaction of making them all stare, open-mouthed, when he related his story,which he took care to tell as if it were true, and also of seeing the student somewhat puzzled to draw the various characters mentioned therein.

"So that is the story of Wide-mouthed Kluhn,” I said, as Janet finished, and held up her large ball, whereon were twined the worsteds of different colors. "I shall tell that story to my children in America."

Upon this I heard a loud laugh, and a merry voice said: "How much he must think of his children in America, to be talking of them in his sleep!"

I started up and looked hastily about me. Janet sat quietly knitting in her arm-chair. The family were gathered around, waiting for me to awake, before lighting the tree.

"And did you not," I asked Janet, — "did you not turn the leather trunk upside down, and sit there, winding bright worsteds? And Lina, did you not creep in on tiptoe, and bid me not interrupt her?"

Upon this, they all laughed merrily. And when I saw the small black trunk right side up, and when Janet held up her long gray stocking, and when Lina assured me she had not entered the room until just as I spoke of my children in America, I became convinced that it was all a dream. And after the tree had been lighted, and the gifts presented, and the supper eaten, I amused the company and myself by setting before them, in as orderly an array as was possible, the somewhat confused visions of my Christmas sleep.

Then, suddenly recollecting that Janet had told me no story, I exclaimed, "So then, after all, I have not yet heard the

Here I paused. For, even then, it seemed impossible to believe it all a dream.

"No," said old Janet, with a smile, "you have not yet heard the true story of Wide-mouthed Kluhn."

Mrs. A. M. Diaz.

HE snow fell faster and faster, the train moved more and more slowly, and

ΤΗ

the daylight was almost gone. Mrs. Durant glanced over the top of the magazine in which she was vainly trying to forget her anxieties, and watched, first the whirling storm without, - the dreary, leafless forest through which the cars were struggling, and then the faces of the two young girls who were travelling under her charge. Laura, the elder, was absorbed in reading the last chapters of "Leslie Goldthwaite," with her head pressed closely against the window to catch the fading light, quite heedless that the damp pane was taking all the crimp out of her fair hair. Her sister Emily was leaning back in the other corner of the seat, fast asleep, in spite of the jerking motion of the laboring train.

"If they were but safely at home," thought Mrs. Durant, "I should not mind much being snowed in here all night. Alfred and I could bear it very well, but they "

. At this moment the train gave a sudden lurch and stopped. Emily was aroused, and began to rub her eyes and look around her; but Laura only said, "O dear! what a jerk!" and went on with her story. Mrs. Durant appeared absorbed in her magazine, lest the girls should notice the uneasiness she felt, as man after man left the car, and an audible murmur of dismay was heard.

Now the door opened again, and a bright-faced boy of fifteen came in, with