has been scooping them out again by her water-chisel into deep glens,
mighty cliffs, sharp peaks, such as you see aloft, and making the old
hills beautiful once more. Why, even the Alps in Switzerland have been
carved out by frost and rain, out of some great flat. The very peak of
the Matterhorn, of which you have so often seen a picture, is but one
single point left of some enormous bun of rock. All the rest has been
carved away by rain and frost; and some day the Matterhorn itself will be
carved away, and its last stone topple into the glacier at its foot. See,
as we have been talking, we have got into the woods.

Oh, what beautiful woods, just like our own.

Not quite. There are some things growing here which do not grow at home,
as you will soon see. And there are no rocks at home, either, as there
are here.

How strange, to see trees growing out of rocks! How do their roots get
into the stone?

There is plenty of rich mould in the cracks for them to feed on--

"Health to the oak of the mountains; he trusts to the might of the
rock-clefts.
Deeply he mines, and in peace feeds on the wealth of the stone."

How many sorts of trees there are--oak, and birch and nuts, and mountain-
ash, and holly and furze, and heather.

And if you went to some of the islands in the lake up in the glen, you
would find wild arbutus--strawberry-tree, as you call it. We will go and
get some one day or other.

How long and green the grass is, even on the rocks, and the ferns, and
the moss, too. Everything seems richer here than at home.

Of course it is. You are here in the land of perpetual spring, where
frost and snow seldom, or never comes.

Oh, look at the ferns under this rock! I must pick some.

Pick away. I will warrant you do not pick all the sorts.

Yes. I have got them all now.

Not so hasty, child; there is plenty of a beautiful fern growing among
that moss, which you have passed over. Look here.

What! that little thing a fern!

Hold it up to the light, and see.

What a lovely little thing, like a transparent sea-weed, hung on black
wire. What is it?

Film fern, Hymenophyllum. But what are you staring at now, with all your
eyes?

Oh! that rock covered with green stars and a cloud of little white and
pink flowers growing out of them.

Aha! my good little dog! I thought you would stand to that game when you
found it.

What is it, though?

You must answer that yourself. You hav