arm in these broad meadows and gentle eminences. They are better than
mountains, because they do not stamp and stereotype themselves into the
brain, and thus grow wearisome with the same strong impression, repeated
day after day. A few summer weeks among mountains, a lifetime among
green meadows and placid slopes, with outlines forever new, because
continually fading out of the memory--such would be my sober choice.

I doubt whether Eustace did not internally pronounce the whole thing a
bore, until I led him to my predecessor's little ruined, rustic summer
house, midway on the hillside. It is a mere skeleton of slender,
decaying tree trunks, with neither walls nor a roof; nothing but a
tracery of branches and twigs, which the next wintry blast will be very
likely to scatter in fragments along the terrace. It looks, and is, as
evanescent as a dream; and yet, in its rustic network of boughs, it
has somehow enclosed a hint of spiritual beauty, and has become a true
emblem of the subtile and ethereal mind that planned it. I made Eustace
Bright sit down on a snow bank, which had heaped itself over the mossy
seat, and gazing through the arched windows opposite, he acknowledged
that the scene at once grew picturesque.

"Simple as it looks," said he, "this little edifice seems to be the work
of magic. It is full of suggestiveness, and, in its way, is as good as a
cathedral. Ah, it would be just the spot for one to sit in, of a summer
afternoon, and tell the children some more of those wild stories from
the classic myths!"

"It would, indeed," answered I. "The summer house itself, so airy and
so broken, is like one of those old tales, imperfectly remembered; and
these living branches of the Baldwin apple tree, thrusting so rudely
in, are like your unwarrantable interpolations. But, by the by, have
you added any more legends to the series, since the publication of the
'Wonder-Book'?"

"Many more," said Eustace; "Primrose, Periwinkle, and the rest of them,
allow me no comfort of my life unless I tell them a story every day or
two. I have run away from home partly to escape the importunity of these
little wretches! But I have written out six of the new stories, and have
brought them for you to look over."

"Are they as good as the first?" I inquired.

"Better chosen, and better handled," replied Eustace Bright. "You will
say so when you read them."

"Possibly not," I remarked. "I know from my own experience, that an
author'