the world, while I am constantly the victim of envy and hatred. My productions are destroyed, sometimes rudely and harshly, sometimes with insidious cunning, but her labors are praised all the world over. Mankind wreathe them with flowers, embroider them with gold, and load them with jewels."

3. "I sympathize with you deeply, for I, too, am the victim of envy and injustice. Look at my web across the window-pane? Did the Silk-worm ever do anything to equal its delicate transparency? Yet I suppose to-morrow's sun will see it swept away by the unfeeling housemaid. Alas! my sister, genius and merit are always pursued by envy."

4. "Foolish creatures," exclaimed a man who overheard their complaints. "You, Mrs. Caterpillar, who boast of your rapid productions, let me ask you what is their value? Do they not contain the eggs that will hereafter develop themselves, and destroy blossoms and fruit, leaving the trees of summer as bare as those of winter?

5. "As for you, Mrs. Spider, you are hardly worthy of a rebuke. Your transparent web is so light that a dew drop is enough to break it. Like other framers of flimsy snares, you will catch a few silly little flies, and then be swept away, and seen no more. How can such as you estimate the labors of the Silk-worm? They add splendor to the state of monarchs and grace to the form of beauty."

In-sid'i-ous. Sly; diligent to entrap. | Flim'sy. Of weak texture; feeble.
Pur-sued'. Chased; followed.
Es'ti-mate. Set a value on.

LXXX. WHITE MOUNTAIN SCENERY.

REV. THOMAS STARR KING.

vā'ry-ing

sce'ner-y

un-veil'ing

W

HOEVER visits, for the first time, the Franconia Notch, if he would thoroughly enjoy the evervarying beauties of its scenery, should not fail to walk from one hotel to the other.

2. Thus only can he test with eye and ear the freshness of the forest. In this way only can he fully catch the glancing sunlight on the mountain stream, or note the rare beauties of the ferns and mosses on its banks.

3. By so doing only will he be enabled to have even a glimpse at the bright colors at the bottom of its cool, still pool, or to appreciate the over-arching grace of the trees, or hear the busy babble of its sparkling tide.

4. He should follow the mountain rivulet which runs parallel with the road, but which is for the most part concealed from it by the forest. No real lover of nature, who has time at command, will consent to lose the pleasure which these rambles give in unveiling the coy charms of nature's wildness.

5. Rev. Henry Ward Beecher tells us: "I have always wished that there might be a rock-spring upon my place; I would wish to have, back of the house some two hundred yards, a steep and tree-covered height of broad, cold, and mossy rocks, upholstered with vines and soft with deep

mosses.

6. "Is any light so impressive as the last light of the day streaming into a forest so dark that even insects leave

it silent? Yes, another light is as strange-that roselight of the afternoon which shines down a hillside of vivid green grass.

7. "It strikes through the transparent leaves into the forest below, and spreads itself along the ground in a tender color for which we have no name."

poetic preacher would desire to have transported to his grounds.

9. The granite bowl, sixty feet in circumference, is filled with water that is pellucid as air. The rocky shelf, twenty feet above, has been grooved by a cascade that perpetually pours over; and into the depths of cool shadow below, golden flakes of light sink down like falling leaves.

10. If it did not lie so near the dusty road, or if a landscape gardener could be commissioned to arrange the surroundings of it, it would be as rare a gem as the Franconia cabinet of curiosities could show.

11. There is a silent pool, whose glass
Reflects the lines of earth and sky;
The hues of heaven along it pass,
And all the verdant forestry.

12. And in that shining downward view,
Each cloud, and leaf, and little flower
Grows 'mid a watery sphere anew,

And doubly lives the summer hour.

13. Beside the brink a lovely maid

Against a furrowed stem is leaning,
To watch the painted light and shade
That give the mirror form and meaning.

14. Her shape and cheek, her eyes and hair,
Have caught the splendor floating round;
She in herself embodies there

All life that fills sky, lake, and ground.

15. And while her looks the crystal meets,
Her own fair image seems to rise;

And, glass-like, too, her heart repeats
The world that there in vision lies.

16. The best way to enjoy the beauty of the Basin is to ascend to the highest of the cascades that slide along a mile of the mountain at the west. Follow down by their pathways, as they make the rocks now white with foam, now glassy with smooth, thin, transparent sheets, till they fall with musical splash into the shadowed reservoir beneath.

Va'ry-ing. Changing.

Glimpse. A short, transitory view; a glance.

Coy. Modest; shy.

Pel-lu/cid. Clear; transparent.

Brink. The margin of a steep place; the edge.

Em-bod'ies. Puts into a material shape.

THE END.

Cambridge: Electrotyped and Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co.