nd she was
compelled to help herself. On went the Torrent, weaker every step, until
at last he stopped and said:

"Oh wedded Brook! my strength is gone; here must I pause; but you go on.
Perhaps before long I shall meet you again. Go slowly; over the meadows
and through the villages make me a path; I'll know which way you went."

And so they parted; and so the lonely Brook meandered on, and finding
out a bubbling spring, was well recruited for the journey. As she went
she heard, across a little knoll, a remembered voice, and stopped. "I
know you, sister Brook," cried out the voice, "go on a bit and turn
towards your left, and there I'll meet you."

And towards the left the lonely Brook met her ambitious sister. She was
violent no more; but sober and sedate; calm as the evening sky reflected
from her face.

"I'm the 'ambitious one,'" said she, "ambitious yet, though all my
strength has departed. Here on this spot was I caught and fastened up.
They darkened my daylight with that smoking monster yonder, and killed
my peace of mind with such a horrid din and clang, I've not a morsel of
energy left. I'm a factory slave; and so are you, too, for that matter,
now! Don't start; it's not my fault--the way that you were going on, you
would have brought up in the Pond below, where there is yet another
smoking monster; only worse than this of mine. The Pond there is a
horrid fellow; poisoning with some horrid purple dye: I've seen him
often when I venture near the dam and look below."

"Sister, take courage," cried the other Brook. "I'm glad I met you. I'm
ambitious too, for I was lately wedded to a glorious fellow, and have
been on such a glorious tour: scampering over all the land. He calls
himself the 'Mountain-Torrent.' He is now behind a mile or so, and may
be down upon us before long, to free us from this distressing
imprisonment you speak of."

The monster smoked on; and the clanging din about maddened all the air.
Huge wheels went racking and rumbling under huge brick walls. And day by
day, a minute at a time, some youthful faces, pale and shadowy, looked
wistfully upon the landscape below. But little knew the monster, and the
clanging din, and racking wheels; and little hoped the shadowy faces of
what the Brooklets plotted at the very factory door.

CHAPTER IV.

_How the Mountain-Torrent freed the Brooks; and their fate._

The frost dropped on the Brooks, and once more blurred the moon and
stars, and shut