re not dimmed with the haze of
tears. Then away she glides with a thankful smile, and dancing over the
greensward, like an uncertain sunbeam, lays the treasure, won by her
beauty, her skill, and her industry, on the lap of her old guardian, who
blesses her with the uplifting of withered hands.

Meanwhile, we request you to walk away with us up to Stockgill-force.
There has been a new series of dry weather, to be sure; but to our
liking, a waterfall is best in a rainless summer. After a flood, the
noise is beyond all endurance. You get stunned and stupified till your
head splits. Then you may open your mouth like a barn-door--we are
speaking to you, sir--and roar into a friend's ear all in vain a remark
on the cataract. To him you are a dumb man. In two minutes you are as
completely drenched in spray as if you had fallen out of a boat--and
descend to dinner with a toothache that keeps you in starvation in the
presence of provender sufficient for a whole bench of bishops. In dry
weather, on the contrary, the waterfall is in moderation; and instead of
tumbling over the cliff in a perpetual peal of thunder, why, it slides
and slidders merrily and musically away down the green shelving rocks,
and sinks into repose in many a dim or lucid pool, amidst whose
foam-bells is playing or asleep the fearless Naiad. Deuce a headache
have you--speak in a whisper, and not a syllable of your excellent
observation is lost; your coat is dry, except that a few dewdrops have
been shook over you from the branches stirred by the sudden wing-clap of
the cushat--and as for toothache interfering with dinner, you eat as if
your tusks had been just sharpened, and would not scruple to discuss
nuts, upper-and-lower-jaw-work fashion, against the best crackers in the
county. And all this comes of looking at Stockgill-force, or any other
waterfall, in dry weather, after a few refreshing and fertilising
showers that make the tributary rills to murmur, and set at work a
thousand additional feeders to every Lake.

Ha! Matutine Roses!--budding, half-blown, consummate--you are, indeed,
in irresistible blush! We shall not say which of you we love best--_she
knows it_; but we see there is no hope to-day for the old man--for you
are all paired--and he must trudge it _solus_, in capacity of
Guide-General of the Forces. What! the nymphs are going to pony it? And
you intend, you selfish fellows, that we shall hold all the reins
whenever the spirit moveth you to d