SECOND.

How the miller behaved to his kind neighbors, and about the rushing
torrent which came very near destroying the old mill

PREFACE.

* * * * *

One evening--it was winter, and the hills and fields were covered with
snow, but the moon shone bright on the frosty windows, and the fire was
burning cheerfully in the grate; it was such an evening when one likes
to enjoy the pleasures of a song or story. You may imagine yourselves on
such an evening seated around the table, something like the knights of
old, whose pleasure it was to relate their wonderful deeds of arms, when
they returned from the "_Holy Land_," or from some noble deed of
knightly prowess; but the stories you shall hear are very different from
those, as the picture you see before you indicates. They are chiefly
stories for children, and are such as relate more particularly to the
affections of the heart. They may be "_Fairy Tales_," or they may be
household narratives of facts, such as occur in the every-day life of a
child. If the moral be good and pure, and the mind interested and made
better, the end is accomplished.

THE TURTLE-DOVES OF CARMEL.

BY MARY HOWITT.

* * * * *

CHAPTER FIRST.

ABOUT A YOUNG ENGLISH MUSICIAN, AND HOW HE CAME TO SPEND THE WINTER AT
MOUNT CARMEL.

A great many turtle-doves lived about Mount Carmel, and there were
orange-trees and cypresses there, and among these the doves lived all
the winter. They had broods early in the year, and towards the end of
March, or the beginning of April, they set off like great gentlefolks,
to spend "the season" near London. All last winter a young English
musician, who was very pale and thin, lived with the monks in the
monastery on Mount Carmel. He went to Syria because when a child he had
loved so to hear his mother read in the Bible about Elijah and Elisha on
Mount Carmel. And he used to think then that if ever he was rich, he
would go and see all the wonderful places mentioned in the Bible.

But he never was rich, and yet he came here. He was very pale, and had
large and beautiful but sorrowful eyes. He took a violin with him to
Mount Carmel; it was the greatest treasure he had on earth, and he
played the most wonderful things on this violin that ever were heard,
and everybody who heard it said that he was a great musician. In the
winters he suffered very much from the cold and the fogs of England