ut again."

The Echo-dwarf did not stop to break the key of the tree. He was too
happy to be released to think of anything else, and he hastened as
fast as he could to his home on the rocky hillside.

* * * * *

The Dryad was not mistaken when she trusted in the piper. When the
warm days came again he went to the oak-tree to let her out. But, to
his sorrow and surprise, he found the great tree lying upon the
ground. A winter storm had blown it down, and it lay with its trunk
shattered and split. And what became of the Dryad no one ever knew.

THE TRANSFERRED GHOST

The country residence of Mr. John Hinckman was a delightful place to
me, for many reasons. It was the abode of a genial, though somewhat
impulsive, hospitality. It had broad, smooth-shaven lawns and
towering oaks and elms; there were bosky shades at several points,
and not far from the house there was a little rill spanned by a
rustic bridge with the bark on; there were fruits and flowers,
pleasant people, chess, billiards, rides, walks, and fishing. These
were great attractions; but none of them, nor all of them together,
would have been sufficient to hold me to the place very long. I had
been invited for the trout season, but should probably have finished
my visit early in the summer had it not been that upon fair days,
when the grass was dry, and the sun was not too hot, and there was
but little wind, there strolled beneath the lofty elms, or passed
lightly through the bosky shades, the form of my Madeline.

This lady was not, in very truth, my Madeline. She had never given
herself to me, nor had I, in any way, acquired possession of her.
But as I considered her possession the only sufficient reason for
the continuance of my existence, I called her, in my reveries, mine.
It may have been that I would not have been obliged to confine the
use of this possessive pronoun to my reveries had I confessed the
state of my feelings to the lady.

But this was an unusually difficult thing to do. Not only did I
dread, as almost all lovers dread, taking the step which would in an
instant put an end to that delightful season which may be termed the
ante-interrogatory period of love, and which might at the same time
terminate all intercourse or connection with the object of my
passion, but I was also dreadfully afraid of John Hinckman. This
gentleman was a good friend of mine, but it would have required a
bolder man than I w