mother!" said she, "I have seen such beautiful things!"

"Whereabouts, child!"

"Oh, way down under the water! Such a funny little man, all dressed in sea-weed, took me down on his back, and—"

"Nonsense, Effie! don't come to me with such stories. Go and wash your face and hands, and get yourself ready for supper."

"But really! mother,—"

"Sh! child; do as I tell you, and don't talk to me about your going down underneath the water; you'd ha' been wet through if you had."

"But he covered me all up with sea-weed."

"Poh! you've been asleep on the rock, and dreaming about it; it's a wonder you didn't fall off into the water. Come! run and wash yourself. Supper's most ready."

Effie went off pouting; and Mother Gilder took the frying-pan off the fire with the fish sizzling and smoking hot. "Come, father!" said she, "and Effie, hurry up! supper's on the table."

"Where's your little dog, Effie?" said her father. Effie didn't speak.

"Have you eat him up, eh?" Never a word from Effie.

"The child is naughty!" said her mother, "Effie, speak to your father!" But Effie looked crosser than ever.

"Well, you shall go to bed without your supper," said Mrs. Gilder, getting up, "if you're going to behave so. The little thing's been telling some ridiculous story about a man's taking her down under the water on his back!"

"He did take me down!" cried Effie, "and I wish I'd stayed there! erhn! erhn! erhn!" and she cried and cried.

"Soh, soh, little one," said Father Gilder, "you wouldn't want to leave your old father and mother, would you, Effie?"

"N-n-n-no, b-b-but m-m-mother said I didn't go."

"Ah, well! eat your supper, Effie, and then come and tell me all about it." So Effie ate her supper and then sat in her father's lap, and began to tell him all that I have told you; but before she had gone a great way, she was so sleepy that she couldn't tell any thing more, but kept saying, "And—and—and—a-n-d—a-n-d," till she fell fast asleep, and Mother Gilder put her to bed, and she did not wake up once more till the next morning.

"Well, what d'ye think, old man, about this stuff?" asked Mrs. Gilder, when Effie was snug in bed.

"Well, I don't know," said Mr. Gilder. "Its queer! its queer! I guess the child's been dreaming. Light my pipe, old woman."

So, when Mrs. Gilder had foraged in the pockets of her wonderful apron and brought out the tobacco and matches, and had filled the pipe and lighted it, the fisherman tilted his chair back against the chimney and smoked his pipe, and thought about it; but could not come to any conclusion, till at last his pipe went out, and he nodded, and nodded. Mother Gilder who sat on the other side of the fire-place, knitting a stocking that she brought out of one of her pockets, began to nod, too, waking up every once in a while to find she had dropped her stitches, and so making the needles go fast again for a few moments and then slower, till she nodded again, and at last she was fast asleep on one side of the fire-place, and Father Gilder on the other side, and little Effie in her crib. And we'll steal out on tip-toe, so as not to wake them, and come back again in just a year wanting one day.

Wish the Second.—On the Mountain.

ELL, we have been gone a year lacking one day, and here we are back again on the beach, and there is the cottage, and Mrs. Gilder by her table sewing on a frock for Effie, who is sitting on her seat—the great flat rock, you know—down by the water. Effie is a year older now, and this is her seventh birth-day. She has been a pretty good girl; but then she wished a great many times that she could have stayed at the bottom of the sea, and whenever she thought of it, she seemed to hear the song that they sang there. Now she was sitting on her seat, looking out for the old man, who you remember, had promised to come for her Second Wish. She had thought about him a good many times and had made up her mind what she would ask for. It was growing late and she began to be afraid he would not come. She thought she would walk down the beach and meet him; so she walked along looking for him all the while, when she spied a boat coming toward the shore; but she did not look at it much, she was so anxious to see her old man, and she thought she could make him out, just coming along in the distance. Pretty soon, the boat came up to the beach where she was, and a rough-looking sailor jumped out.

"Little girl," said he, "where does Simon Gilder live?"

"In that house, sir," pointing to the red cottage. "He is my father."

"So you're his little girl, are you? Is your father in the house?"

"No, sir, he is in the patch in the woods back there, hoeing potatoes."

"Will you go with me and show me where it is?" Effie looked along the beach and saw the old man, as she thought, slowly coming toward them; "Oh, dear!" thought she, "if the old man should come while I am gone!"

"What's the matter, little girl?" said the sailor-man when he saw she did not answer. "Are you afraid to go with me?"

"No," faltered Effie looking down. "But mother said I wasn't to go away from the beach."

"Oh, Effie, Effie!" said a voice close to her. She started. Why! that was the old man's voice; and when she looked up, there was no sailor-man and no boat, and no one coming down the beach; but the same old man that she saw last year, in the same grey clothes, with the same beautiful long white hair, and his head shaking the same way as he bent down over his old smooth stick—the same old man stood by her.

"Oh, Effie!" said he in his beautiful voice, "you have deceived me. You weren't willing to do me a kindness; you cared too much about your own happiness. And this is your birth-day. I have come for your Second Wish. Remember, you have only one more wish after this. You must tell me this one before the sun goes down. Look!"

Effie looked as he pointed, and the sun stood just on the water's edge; and there were clouds above it and around it, but she thought it would go down clear. She had her wish all ready, though. "I wish," said she, "that I might go on to the great mountain off there," pointing back from the sea, "and see the birds and the trees and the flowers."

When she had said it, the clouds gathered before the sun, so that it could not be seen, and spread over the whole heavens, and she had hardly time to run to the cottage, before the rain began to pour down in torrents. Out at sea it was all black, except where the white caps of foam lighted up the waters; the waves rushed roaring on the beach, and the wind drove the sharp rain against the house. Effie put her face against the window-glass and peered out into the darkness, but she could see nothing of the old man.

"A bad ending to your birth-day, little Effie," said her father, coming in just then, all dripping wet. "Never mind. A bad beginning makes a good ending so your birth-day must have begun well, and this day is the beginning of the year for you, so the year'll end well. So it's good all round, ha! It's a bad night, wife! I hope nobody's out in the storm; it came up sudden."

Effie thought of the old man and shivered to think how wet and cold he would get. But she only thought of it a moment, and then