visit the old town, you would still see the little
griffins on the sides of the church; but the great stone griffin that
was over the door is gone.

OLD PIPES AND THE DRYAD.

* * * * *

A mountain brook ran through a little village. Over the brook there
was a narrow bridge, and from the bridge a foot-path led out from the
village and up the hill-side, to the cottage of Old Pipes and his
mother. For many, many years, Old Pipes had been employed by the
villagers to pipe the cattle down from the hills. Every afternoon, an
hour before sunset, he would sit on a rock in front of his cottage
and play on his pipes. Then all the flocks and herds that were
grazing on the mountains would hear him, wherever they might happen
to be, and would come down to the village--the cows by the easiest
paths, the sheep by those not quite so easy, and the goats by the
steep and rocky ways that were hardest of all.

But now, for a year or more, Old Pipes had not piped the cattle home.
It is true that every afternoon he sat upon the rock and played upon
his familiar instrument; but the cattle did not hear him. He had
grown old, and his breath was feeble. The echoes of his cheerful
notes, which used to come from the rocky hill on the other side of
the valley, were heard no more; and twenty yards from Old Pipes one
could scarcely tell what tune he was playing. He had become somewhat
deaf, and did not know that the sound of his pipes was so thin and
weak, and that the cattle did not hear him. The cows, the sheep, and
the goats came down every afternoon as before, but this was because
two boys and a girl were sent up after them. The villagers did not
wish the good old man to know that his piping was no longer of any
use, so they paid him his little salary every month, and said nothing
about the two boys and the girl.

Old Pipes's mother was, of course, a great deal older then he was,
and was as deaf as a gate,--posts, latch, hinges, and all,--and she
never knew that the sound of her son's pipe did not spread over all
the mountainside, and echo back strong and clear from the opposite
hills. She was very fond of Old Pipes, and proud of his piping; and
as he was so much younger than she was, she never thought of him as
being very old. She cooked for him, and made his bed, and mended his
clothes; and they lived very comfortably on his little salary.

One afternoon, at the end of the month, when Old Pipes ha