ly enjoying your surprise.

[Illustration]

All this, and much more indeed, will a toy balloon do, if treated in
the manner I have described.

Begin with a piece of paper rather heavier than the balloon, and tear
off bit by bit until the two exactly balance.

DRIFTED INTO PORT.

BY EDWIN HODDER.

CHAPTER IX.

AMONG THE FISHER FOLKS.

We cannot follow the holiday party through all their pleasant
wanderings, nor tell of the impressions made upon them by the scenes,
celebrated in history and romance, through which they traveled.

Their drives in the midday heat, their strolls in the cool evening,
their resting hours as they talked over the events of the day, all were
harmonious and gladsome.

If there was one part of the trip which gave them greater pleasure than
the rest, it was their visit to the Shetland Isles.

There was an indescribable pleasure to our young folks in wandering
under cliffs gaunt and bare, and hearing the stories of Vikings, who
fought and fell,--or fought and conquered in these isles.

Sometimes in their wanderings they would come upon a "fairy-ring," and
as they listened to the strange stories told by the islanders, they
seemed to be really in some bewitched and spell-bound place. Or,
perhaps a "kern," standing solitary upon some hill-top, would call
forth a whole series of Danish and Norwegian legends, which would give
them food for reflection for days.

Many a pleasant adventure they had as they rode together on their
sure-footed little "shelties," or climbed the crags and rocks to look
down upon the isles, "like so many stars reflected from the sky." And
many a pleasant talk they had with the hospitable inhabitants, who
rehearsed to them some of the dangers which assail the dwellers in
those solitary little islands. The narrow belts of sea, which divide
their ocean-girded homes, have constantly to be ferried across, and
many a boat which has gone out manned with a gallant crew has never
returned or sent a waif to tell its story.

It was partly to acquire a knowledge of the Shetland character, and to
see some phases of its home-life, that our friends, when they came at
last to one little village by the sea, where they had only intended to
make a flying visit, determined to halt there for a few days. It was a
charming spot; on the one side of the village there were to be seen
some of the finest specimens of the savage grandeur of cliff and crag,
and on the other the smil