night wind, in a Norwegian forest, wakens a myriad of tiny harps, and this gentle, mournful music may be heard in gushes the whole night through.

8. This music ceases, of course, when each tree becomes laden with snow; yet there is sound in the midst of the longest winter night. There is the rumble of some avalanche as, after a drifting storm, a mass of snow, too heavy to keep its place, slides and tumbles from the mountain peak. There is also, now and then, a loud crack of the ice in the nearest glacier; and, as many declare, there is a crackling to be heard by those who listen when the northern lights are shooting and blazing across the sky.

9. Nor is this all. Wherever there is a nook between the rocks on the shore where a man may build a house and clear a field or two, wherever there is a platform beside the cataract where the sawyer may plant his mill and make a path from it to some great road, there is a human habitation with the sounds that belong to it.

10. Thence, in winter nights, come music and laughter, the tread of dancers, and the hum of many voices. The Norwegians are a social and hospitable people; and they hold their gay meetings, in defiance of their arctic climate, in winter as well as in summer.

1. Jagged, perpetual, inundate, promontories, fiords, sportive, inspect, islet, constellations, browse, vibrate, avalanche.

2. How does the coast of Norway differ from our coasts? Can you describe the Norwegians? What is their form of government? Explain "straggling promontories," "still as everything is to the eye," "the ear is kept awake." Does the pine have leaves? What is the music referred to in paragraph 6?

XXXVI. SEEKING FOR FAIRIES.

1. "And where, and among what pleasant places
Have ye been, that ye come again
With your laps so full of flowers, and
Like buds blown fresh after rain ?"

your

faces

2. "We have been," said the children-speaking
In their gladness, as the birds chime,
All together" we have been seeking
For the Fairies of olden time;

3. "For we thought, they are only hidden,—
They would never surely go

From this green earth all unbidden,
And the children that love them so;

4. "Though they come not around us leaping,
As they did when They and the World
Were young, we shall find them sleeping,
Within some broad leaf curled;

5. "For the lily its white doors closes
But only over the bee;

And we looked through the summer roses,
Leaf by leaf, so carefully;

6. "But we thought, rolled up we shall find them
Among mosses old and dry;
From gossamer threads that bind them
They will start like a butterfly,

7. "All winged: so we went forth seeking,
Yet still they have kept unseen,

Though we think our feet have been keeping
The track where they have been ;

8. "For we saw where their dance went flying
O'er the pastures snowy white,
Their seats and their tables lying
O'erthrown in their sudden flight.

9. "And they, too, have had their losses,
For we found the goblets white
And red in the old spiked mosses,
That they drank from overnight;
And in the pale horn of the woodbine
Was some wine left, clear and bright:

10. "But we found," said the children, speaking More quickly, "so many things,

That we soon forgot we were seeking

Forgot all the Fairy rings,

Forgot all the stories olden

That we hear round the fire at night,
Of their gifts, and their favors golden,—
The sunshine was so bright;

11. "And the flowers-we found so many
That it almost made us grieve

To think there were some, sweet as any,
That we were forced to leave;
As we left, by the brookside lying
The balls of drifted foam,
And brought (after all our trying)
These Guelder roses home."

1. Chime, unbidden, gossamer, grieve, curled.

2. What are fairies? Where did the children seek them? How does the butterfly "start from gossamer threads"? What made the children forget the fairies? Are there things in nature more wonderful than the fairy tales?

XXXVII. BATTLE OF THE ANTS.

1. One day, when I went out to my wood-pile, or rather my pile of stumps, I observed two ants-the one red, the other black and much larger-fiercely contending with one another. Having once got

hold they never let go, but struggled and wrestled and rolled on the chips incessantly.

2. Looking farther, I was surprised to find that the chips were covered with such combatants, that it was not a duel, but a war between two races of ants, the red always pitted against the black, and frequently two red ones to one black. The legions of these myrmidons covered all the hills and vales in my wood-yard, and the ground was already strewn with the dead and dying, both red and black.

3. It was the only battle which I have ever witnessed, the only battlefield I ever trod while the battle was raging. On every side they were engaged in deadly combat, yet without any noise I could hear, and human soldiers never fought so resolutely.

4. I watched a couple that were fast locked in each other's embrace, in a little sunny valley amid the chips, now at noonday prepared to fight till the sun went down or life went out. The smaller red champion had fastened himself like a vice to his adversary's front, and through all the tumblings on that field never for an instant ceased to gnaw at one of his feelers near the root, having already caused the other to go by the board; while the stronger black one dashed him from side to side, and, as I saw on looking nearer, had already