t tinkling
of the cow-bells. She is a loving little daughter, and she thinks of
her father so far away alone, and wishes he was coming home to eat
some of the sweet strawberries and cream for supper.

Last summer some travellers came to the house. They stopped at the
door and asked for milk; the mother brought them brimming bowlsful,
and the shy little girl crept up behind her mother with her birch-bark
baskets of berries. The gentlemen took them and thanked her, and one
told of his own little Mary at home, far away over the great sea.
Jeannette often thinks of her, and wonders whether her papa has gone
home to her.

While the gentlemen talked, Jeannette's brother Joseph sat upon the
broad stone doorstep and listened. Presently one gentleman, turning
to him, asked if he would come with them over the mountain to lead the
way, for there are many wild places and high, steep rocks, and they
feared to get lost.

Joseph sprang up from his low seat and said he would go, brought his
tall hat and his mountain-staff, like a long, strong cane, with a
sharp iron at the end, which he can stick into the snow or ice if
there is danger of slipping; and they went merrily on their way, over
the green grass, over the rocks, far up among the snow and ice, and
the frozen streams and rivers that pour down the mountain-sides.

Joseph was brave and gay; he led the way, singing aloud until the
echoes answered from every hillside. It makes one happy to sing, and
when we are busy and happy we sing without thinking of it, as the
birds do. When everything is bright and beautiful in nature around
us, we feel like singing aloud and praising God, who made the earth so
beautiful; then the earth also seems to sing of God who made it,
and the echo seems like its answer of praise. Did you ever hear the
echo,--the voice that seems to come from a hill or a house far away,
repeating whatever you may say? Among the mountains the echoes answer
each other again and again. Jeannette has often heard them.

That night, while the mother and her little girl were eating their
supper, the gentlemen came back again, bringing Joseph with them. He
could not walk now, nor spring from rock to rock with his Alpen staff;
he had fallen and broken his leg, and he must lie still for many days.
But he could keep a cheerful face, and still sing his merry songs; and
as he grew better, and could sit out again on the broad bench beside
the door, he took his knife and pieces of