c shapes, some of them far down into
the valley, others high up towards the summits, and still others, of
the same family of mist or cloud, hovering in the gold radiance of the
upper atmosphere. Stepping from one to another of the clouds that
rested on the hills, and thence to the loftier brotherhood that sailed
in air, it seemed almost as if a mortal man might thus ascend into the
heavenly regions. Earth was so mingled with sky that it was a day-dream
to look at it.

To supply that charm of the familiar and homely, which Nature so
readily adopts into a scene like this, the stage-coach was rattling
down the mountain-road, and the driver sounded his horn, while Echo
caught up the notes, and intertwined them into a rich and varied and
elaborate harmony, of which the original performer could lay claim to
little share. The great hills played a concert among themselves, each
contributing a strain of airy sweetness.

Little Joe's face brightened at once.

"Dear father," cried he, skipping cheerily to and fro, "that strange
man is gone, and the sky and the mountains all seem glad of it!"

"Yes," growled the lime-burner, with an oath, "but he has let the fire
go down, and no thanks to him if five hundred bushels of lime are not
spoiled. If I catch the fellow hereabouts again, I shall feel like
tossing him into the furnace!"

With his long pole in his hand, he ascended to the top of the kiln.
After a moment's pause, he called to his son.

"Come up here, Joe!" said he.

So little Joe ran up the hillock, and stood by his father's side. The
marble was all burnt into perfect, snow-white lime. But on its surface,
in the midst of the circle,--snow-white too, and thoroughly converted
into lime,--lay a human skeleton, in the attitude of a person who,
after long toil, lies down to long repose. Within the ribs--strange to
say--was the shape of a human heart.

"Was the fellow's heart made of marble?" cried Bartram, in some
perplexity at this phenomenon. "At any rate, it is burnt into what
looks like special good lime; and, taking all the bones together, my
kiln is half a bushel the richer for him."

So saying, the rude lime-burner lifted his pole, and, letting it fall
upon the skeleton, the relics of Ethan Brand were crumbled into
fragments.

THE CANTERBURY PILGRIMS

The summer moon, which shines in so many a tale, was beaming over a
broad extent of uneven country. Some of its brightest rays were flung
into a spring of w