ly down
the mountain side. Such lovely blossoms, pink, golden, and scarlet, met
his eye as he gazed on the gardens of the laborers, that he involuntarily
exclaimed, "I fear I have spent my days not wisely on yonder mountain
top, taking at least a third of my time in climbing up and down. Richer
flowers grow here in the valley; the air is softer, and the grass like
velvet to the tread. I'll see if there is a vacant cottage for me."

Saying this, he accosted a laborer who was just returning from his
toil: "Good man, do you know of any cottage near which I can rent?"

"Why! you are the old man from the mountain," exclaimed the astonished
person addressed.

"I am coming to the valley to live. I am now seeking a shelter."

"Yonder," answered the man, "is a cottage just vacated by a man and
wife. Would that suit you?"

"Anything that will shelter me will suit," was the answer. "Dost thou
know who owns the house?"

"Von Nellser, the gardener. He lives down by the river now, and works for
all the rich men in the valley."

"I'll see him to-night," said the old man, and, thanking his informant,
was moving on.

"But, good father, the sun has already set; the night shades appear.
Come and share my shelter and bread to-night, and in the morning seek
Von Nellser."

The old man gladly accepted his kind offer. "The vale makes men kindly of
heart and feeling," he said, as he uncovered his head to enter the home
of the laborer. A fair woman of forty came forward, and clasped his hand
with a warmth of manner which made him feel more at ease than many words
of welcome would have done.

The three sat together at supper, and refreshed themselves with food
and thought.

He retired early to the nice apartment assigned him, and lay awake a
long time, musing on the past and the present. "Ah, I see," he said to
himself, "why I am an object of wonder and something of awe to the
people of the valley. I have lived apart from human ties, while they have
grown old and ripe together. I must be a riddle to them all--a something
which they have invested with an air of veneration, because I was not
daily in their midst. Had it been otherwise, I should have been neither
new nor fresh to them. How know I but this is God's reserve force
wherewith each may become refreshed, and myself an humble instrument
sent in the right moment to vivify those who have been thinking alike too
much?"

He fell asleep, and awoke just as the sun was throwing its