py. I must find it out -- since it is there -- and I
could not be happy if I did not find it; -- but if dere was no
truth to be found, I could make myself more happy in some ozer
way."

The fine corners of the young man's mouth shewed that he
thought Mr. Herder was a little confused in his philosophy.

"_You_ think one ought to live to be happy, don't you, Mr.
Rufus?" said Miss Rose.

"No!" said Rufus, with a fire in his eye and lip, and making
at the same time an energetic effort after a difficult branch
of huckleberries, -- "no! -- not in the ordinary way!"

"In what way then?" said the young lady with her favourite
pout.

"He has just shewed you, Miss Rose," said Winthrop; -- "in
getting the highest huckleberry bush. It don't make him happy
-- only he had rather have that than another."

"Let us have your sense of the matter, then," said his
brother.

"But Mr. Herder," said Elizabeth, "why do you want to find out
truth? -- what is it for?"

"For science -- for knowledge; -- that is what will do goot to
the world and make ozer happy. It is not to live like a man to
live for himself."

"Then what _should_ one live for," said Elizabeth a little
impatiently, -- "if it isn't to be happy?"

"I would rather not live at all," said Rose, her pretty lips
black with huckleberries, which indeed was the case with the
whole party.

"You yourself, Mr. Herder, that is your happiness -- to find
out truth, as you say -- to advance science and learning and do
good to other people; you find your own pleasure in it."

"Yes, Mr. Herder," chimed in Rose, -- "don't you love flowers
and stones and birds and fishes, and beetles, and animals --
don't you love them as much as we do dogs and horses? -- don't
you love that little black monkey you shewed us the other
day?"

"No, Miss Rose," said the naturalist, -- "no, I do not love
them -- I do not care for them; -- I love what is _back_ of those
things; dat is what I want."

"And that is your pleasure, Mr. Herder?"

"I do not know," said the puzzled naturalist, -- "maybe it is --
if I could speak German, I would tell you; -- Wint'rop, you do
say nozing; and you are not eating huckleberries neizer; --
what do you live for?"

"I am at cross-purposes with life, just now, sir."

"Cross?" -- said the naturalist.

"Winthrop is never cross," responded Asahel from behind a
thick branch of huckleberry.

"Dat is to the point!" said Mr. Herder.

"Well, speak to the point," s