aintly from the opposite mountain--but to the
boy's astonishment the echo did not now cease, and fade away, as it
always had done before. It shifted from point to point; its elfin
tones ringing sweet and sad like the bugle of a Fairy Huntsman.

All that day the Echo sounded in the boy's ears, all night it
whispered amongst the mountain tops; and as soon as it became daylight
he sprang up, determined that he would climb the side of the opposite
valley, and find out the reason of the strange music.

A pale-green light tinged the sky, the mountains looked dark and
forbidding, and from the peaks above came the soft sighing of the
distant Echo.

"It is like a soul in pain," thought the boy. "I _must_ find out what
it means!" and he began to climb higher and higher, until the valley
lay far beneath him, and his home looked a little brown speck amidst a
sea of fields and pine trees.

Before him still sounded the Elfin voice, now dying into a whisper,
now ringing clear and distinct, as though close beside him--but always
with the same beseeching sadness: "Follow me! Follow me to my secret
haunts! Give me my soul! Give me my soul!" And the boy climbed on
until he reached the rocky crag which formed the summit of the
mountain.

"At last!" he cried, as he stretched out his arms to clasp the Echo's
fairy-like form that floated mistily before him ... but the Echo had
faded from his sight as he approached her; and her last words were
borne faintly towards him as she vanished into the golden glory of the
sunshine--

"At last! At last! I am at rest at last!"

* * * * *

The boy had learnt the secret of the Alpen-Echo. He had freed her soul
from its long bondage, and a few days afterwards they found him lying
with a smile upon his face on the topmost peak of the Mettenalp.

THE SCROLL IN THE MARKET PLACE.

In the pale light of the moon the sleeping town lay hushed and
noiseless. At its foot the river rolled, spanned by the curves of the
old grey stone bridge, and behind rose the giant hills, clothed with
tracts of pine and birch trees. A high wall surrounded the town, with
towers at intervals, from which gleamed the light of the watchmen's
lanterns.

All was silent on the earth and in the air, when through the deep blue
of the star-sprinkled sky a little Child-Angel winged his way from
Heaven, and hovering over the steep red roofs beneath him, folded his
wings and dropped softly into t