er sister Brooklet, "Let us pause a bit for
breath, and then for a merry leap adown the valley of pines you see
before."

The Brooklets stopped, and became stronger, and leaped over the rocks;
the one with an exulting bound--the other carried tremblingly along.

The leap was a long one, and a hard one; for there were craggy rocks
beneath, which they had not seen. And the ambitious Brooklet cried
sharply and loudly--foaming in her rage as she went between the stony
points, and quite forgetting her weaker sister in her pain. The latter
was sorely injured too, and cut into little foam-bits; but she kept her
wits about her, looking around everywhere for a place to rest. Soon she
espied one--a little bowl of marshy ground, hemmed in by rocks, into
which a straggling dropping from the chasm above slowly came.

"Here will I go and rest," she said. So waiting for the ambitious
Brooklet to get far out of sight, she collected all her strength for a
jump into the bowl, where the drops came sparkling in. There was no need
for fear of the sister on before; her she heard going over rock after
rock, crying and wailing in her craggy journey. Then the tired wanderer,
with a violent effort of her exhausted strength, jumped a rock and fell
panting into the marshy bowl.

CHAPTER II.

_How the Brooklet lived on in her new quarters; and how
misfortune made her discontented._

The dropping of the water from the rocks above her new abode, was cold
and grateful to the Brooklet in her fevered state. It made her think of
the spring she came from; and so of the meadow; and the alder-bushes;
and the lovely face a weary way off now she knew, and fenced away from
her return by cruel jagged rocks.

Days passed by; and the sun came out all brightly. And the moon and
stars were seen again; and larger and sweeter birds than she had heard
before, now perched upon the trees about, warbling and chirruping from
day-break to twilight. So the time passed on. The wanderer began to feel
unsettled in her solitude. But there was no return by the path she came;
still were the sharp rocks seen above; and still she felt a twinge of
pain when thinking of her weary journey on that rainy day. Often too she
thought of her ambitious sister, wondering where she was now and what
she was about; and sometimes she almost fancied she would have been
happier had she gone along. It was quite evident to herself that she was
getting discontented.

There was on