took a book to please himself; and at four o'clock they set out.

When they all got to the hut they were soon all settled. There were
seats in the hut; Henry took the lowest of them. Mrs. Fairchild took
out her work; Mr. Fairchild stretched himself on the grass, within
sight of his family. Emily and Lucy were to read by turns, and Lucy was
to begin. She laid her pretty doll across her lap, and thus she began:

The Story in Emily's Book

"On the borders of Switzerland, towards the north, is a range of hills,
of various heights, called the Hartsfells, or, in English, the Hills of
the Deer. These hills are not very high for that country, though in
England they would be called mountains. In winter they were indeed
covered with snow, but in summer all this snow disappeared, being
gradually melted, and coming down in beautiful cascades from the
heights into the valleys, and so passing away to one or other of the
many lakes which were in the neighbourhood.

"The tops of some of the Hartsfells were crowned with ragged rocks,
which looked, at a distance, like old towers and walls and battlements;
and the sides of these more rocky hills were steep and stony and
difficult. Others of these hills sloped gently towards the plain below,
and were covered with a fine green sward in the summer--so fine and
soft, indeed, that the little children from the villages in the valleys
used to climb up to them in order to have the pleasure of rolling down
them.

"These greener hills were also adorned with large and beautiful trees
under which the shepherds sat when they drove their flocks up on the
mountain pastures, called in that country the Alps, to fatten on the
short fine grass and sweet herbs, which grew there in the summer-time.

"Then the flowers--who can count the numbers and varieties of the
flowers which grew on those hills, and which budded and bloomed through
all the lovely months of spring, of summer, and of autumn? Sometimes
the shepherds, as they sat in the shade watching their sheep, would
play sweet tunes on their pipes and flutes, for a shepherd who could
not use a flute was thought little of in those hills. It was sweet to
hear those pipes and flutes from a little distance, when all was quiet
among the hills, excepting the ever restless and ever dancing waters.
There were many villages among the hills, each village having a valley
to itself; but there is only one of these of which this story speaks.

"It was called Ha