gainst the chimney and
smoked his pipe, and thought about it; but could not come to any
conclusion, till at last his pipe went out, and he nodded, and nodded.
Mother Gilder who sat on the other side of the fire-place, knitting a
stocking that she brought out of one of her pockets, began to nod, too,
waking up every once in a while to find she had dropped her stitches,
and so making the needles go fast again for a few moments and then
slower, till she nodded again, and at last she was fast asleep on one
side of the fire-place, and Father Gilder on the other side, and little
Effie in her crib. And we'll steal out on tip-toe, so as not to wake
them, and come back again in just a year wanting one day.

Wish the Second.--On the Mountain.

[Illustration]

Well, we have been gone a year lacking one day, and here we are back
again on the beach, and there is the cottage, and Mrs. Gilder by her
table sewing on a frock for Effie, who is sitting on her seat--the great
flat rock, you know--down by the water. Effie is a year older now, and
this is her seventh birth-day. She has been a pretty good girl; but then
she wished a great many times that she could have stayed at the bottom
of the sea, and whenever she thought of it, she seemed to hear the song
that they sang there. Now she was sitting on her seat, looking out for
the old man, who you remember, had promised to come for her Second
Wish. She had thought about him a good many times and had made up her
mind what she would ask for. It was growing late and she began to be
afraid he would not come. She thought she would walk down the beach and
meet him; so she walked along looking for him all the while, when she
spied a boat coming toward the shore; but she did not look at it much,
she was so anxious to see her old man, and she thought she could make
him out, just coming along in the distance. Pretty soon, the boat came
up to the beach where she was, and a rough-looking sailor jumped out.

"Little girl," said he, "where does Simon Gilder live?"

"In that house, sir," pointing to the red cottage. "He is my father."

"So you're his little girl, are you? Is your father in the house?"

"No, sir, he is in the patch in the woods back there, hoeing potatoes."

"Will you go with me and show me where it is?" Effie looked along the
beach and saw the old man, as she thought, slowly coming toward them;
"Oh, dear!" thought she, "if the old man should come while I am gone!"

"What