chu-lunk, chu-lunk,' it said. It must have been the chorister calling his frog chorus together for their evening song, for in a moment a multitude of voices were answering from the long grasses, the bushes, the water—indeed, the whole neighborhood, a moment before so quiet, was alive with little frog people. They evidently had some cause of complaint against a very wicked person, as my little Harry has just now, for I distinctly heard one say, 'Stole a rabbit, stole a rabbit;' while another answered, 'I saw him do it, I saw him do it.' Then the whole chorus burst out,'We'll pull him in, we'll pull him in.' 'Plump, plump, plump,' added one voice more revengeful than all the rest. I sat very still, waiting to see what was to be pulled plump into the water. I did not have long to wait, but I fancy things took a turn contrary to the one desired by the frog people. There was a sudden rustling in the bushes, a sharp, quick sound like the springing of a cat. The chorus was still in an instant, but the entire shore of the little pond was covered with rushing, springing, jumping frogs. Pell-mell they tumbled over each other in headlong race for the water, to escape their cruel enemy, which now appeared, and showed himself to be a slender little weasel. He darted here and there among the helpless frogs, which made no attempts to 'pull him in,' but bent their whole efforts toward self-preservation. At length, seizing a fat frog in his mouth, the weasel turned and disappeared noiselessly among the bushes. Peace reigned once more, but the little frog people had all jumped into the water, and not a voice was heard protesting or uttering farther threats."

"And did the weasel get more than one poor little frog, mamma?" asked Harry.

"No, he carried off only one frog," replied mamma; "but he killed several more, which he left lying dead in the grass. I dug a hole in the mud with a sharp stick and buried them, so that their companions should not find them when they ventured on shore again."

"Well," said Harry, after thinking a few moments, "now I guess I'll go and bury my poor dead rabbit."

[Begun in No. 5 of Harper's Young People, Dec. 2.]

THE HISTORY OF PHOTOGEN AND NYCTERIS.

A Day and Night Mährchen.

BY GEORGE MACDONALD.

XI.—THE SUNSET.

"LIKE A SWIFT SHADOW IT SPED OVER THE GRASS."

Knowing nothing of darkness, or stars, or moon, Photogen spent his days in hunting. On a great white horse he swept over the grassy plains, glorying in the sun, fighting the wind, and killing the buffaloes. One morning, when he happened to be on the ground a little earlier than usual, and before his attendants, he caught sight of an animal unknown to him, stealing from a hollow into which the sun rays had not yet reached. Like a swift shadow it sped over the grass, slinking southward to the forest. He gave chase, noted the body of a buffalo it had half eaten, and pursued it the harder. But with great leaps and bounds the creature shot farther and farther ahead of him, and vanished. Turning, therefore, defeated, he met Fargu, who had been following him as fast as his horse could carry him.

"What animal was that, Fargu?" he asked. "How he did run!"

Fargu answered he might be a leopard, but he rather thought, from his pace and look, that he was a young lion.

"What a coward he must be!" said Photogen.

"Don't be too sure of that," rejoined Fargu. "He is one of the creatures the sun makes uncomfortable. As soon as the sun is down he will be brave enough."

He had scarcely said it when he repented; nor did he regret it the less when he found that Photogen made no reply. But, alas! said was said.

"Then," said Photogen to himself, "that contemptible beast is one of the terrors of sundown, of which Madam Watho spoke."

He hunted all day, but not with his usual spirit. He did not ride so hard, and did not kill one buffalo. Fargu, to his dismay, observed also that he took every pretext for moving farther south, nearer to the forest. But all at once, the sun now sinking in the west, he seemed to change his mind, for he turned his horse's head, and rode home so fast that the rest could not keep him in sight. When they arrived, they found his horse in the stable, and concluded that he had gone into the castle. But he had, in truth, set out again by the back of it. Crossing the river a good way up the valley, he reascended to the ground they had left, and just before sunset reached the skirts of the forest.

The level orb shone straight in between the bare stems, and saying to himself he could not fail to find the beast, he rushed into the wood. But even as he entered, he turned and looked to the west. The rim of the red sun was touching the horizon, all jagged with broken hills. "Now," said Photogen, "we shall see;" but he said it in the face of a darkness he had not proved. The moment the sun began to sink among the spikes and saw-edges, with a kind of sudden flap at his heart, a fear inexplicable laid hold of the youth; and as he had never felt anything of the kind before, the very fear itself terrified him. As the sun sank, it rose like the shadow of the world, and grew deeper and darker. He could not even think what it might be, so utterly did it enfeeble him. When the last flaming cimeter-edge of the sun went out like a lamp, his horror seemed to blossom into very madness. Like the closing lids of an eye—for there was no twilight, and this night no moon—the terror and the darkness rushed together, and he knew them for one. He was no longer the man he had known, or rather thought himself. The courage he had had was in no sense his own; he had only had courage, not been courageous; it had left him, and he could scarcely stand—certainly not stand straight, for not one of his joints could he make stiff or keep from trembling. He was but a spark of the sun, in himself nothing.

The beast was behind him—stealing upon him! He turned. All was dark in the wood, but to his fancy the darkness here and there broke into pairs of green eyes, and he had not the power even to raise his bow-hand from his side. In the strength of despair he strove to rouse courage enough, not to fight—that he did not even desire—but to run. Courage to flee home was all he could even imagine, and it would not come. But what he had not was ignominiously given him. A cry in the wood, half a screech, half a growl, sent him running like a boar-wounded cur. It was not even himself that ran, it was the fear that had come alive in his legs: he did not know that they moved. But as he ran he grew able to run—gained courage at least to be a coward. The stars gave a little light. Over the grass he sped, and nothing followed him. "How fallen, how changed," from the youth who had climbed the hill as the sun went down! A mere contempt of himself, the self that contemned was a coward with the self it contemned! There lay the shapeless black of a buffalo, humped upon the grass: he made a wide circuit, and swept on like a shadow driven in the wind. For the wind had arisen, and added to his terror: it blew from behind him. He reached the brow of the valley, and shot down the steep descent like a falling star. Instantly the whole upper country behind him arose and pursued him! The wind came howling after him, filled with screams, shrieks, yells, roars, laughter, and chattering, as if all the animals of the forest were careering with it. In his ears was a trampling rush, the thunder of the hoofs of the cattle, in career from every quarter of the wide plains to the brow of the hill above him! He fled straight for the