strange sight, and with subsequent endeavors to capture the sleepy thing that woke and fluttered just a bough higher every time, the little knot of southerners forgot their good resolution.

There was always a time of comparative peace, though, after breakfast, when Aunt Rose kept school, and also another hour, after their dinner. But when the restraint of lessons was removed, they poured forth to play again with such a joyous outcry that Old Uncle always rose and closed his door.

There was another rapturous season of peace,—on Sunday mornings when they were waiting for the carryalls to take them to church. Janet stepped about the gardens, with the others at her heels, getting as pale and delicate a zinnia as she could find, to pin in the ruffle of her pretty white gown, and a stem of thyme for Jack, and a sprig of southernwood for Will, and a bit of citronella for Charlie; the twins foraging for themselves among the late honeysuckles and early cosmos.

They enjoyed the drive to church. They went in the carryalls, drawn by the three span of farm-horses in the driving harnesses. Janet felt it was like a picnic when they drove away from the piazza in the three carriages, one after the other. It was wrong of Janet, no doubt, to think of a picnic on a Sunday morning; but there certainly was a gala air about the little procession, with so many children in their flowers and ribbons, and their beautiful hair.

They enjoyed the day at church; they enjoyed seeing the people; they enjoyed rambling in the old neglected, bramble-covered graveyard near by, if they arrived too early; they enjoyed tuning up their own little pipes in the singing of the hymns.

There was room for them all in Old Uncle’s big square pew, but part of them sat across the aisle. Six children were too many for one pew. Six turning young heads! six pairs of knocking young heels! twelve restless elbows! It was not to be thought of. Old Uncle sat in one pew with three of them, and Aunt Susan across the aisle with the rest. Uncle Billy and Aunt Rose sat farther back, and were able to report on the general behavior when all reached home.

III.
WHAT THE TWINS FOUND.

The mountains had been a great source of interest at first to the children, who had never before seen anything but boundless savannas. The vast blue and purple shapes seemed to be some strange sort of great live creatures lying crouched against the sky; and they had a little awe if not fear of them.

Even when they became familiar enough to perceive that one pasture led to another up their sides, and to know various of the tumbling black and white brooks by name, they still felt that the mountains were alive, in some mysterious way. And the fact that there were bears and panthers in the caves and recesses of the purplest of the hills, lent a shivery sense of danger, particularly for Essie; for, reasoned Essie, how could the mountains be kind to bears and wolves, and kind to children also? Yet at the same time the fact that Old Uncle owned great tracts of their heights and depths, and had his logging teams and men in the forests in winter getting out the lumber, gave the children a cosy feeling as if they, too, had a sort of proprietorship in them, and even in the remote wild beasts.

The late summer of their first year north had brought the little people a great deal of pleasure. More than once Uncle Billy had taken them all in a skiff down the river, slipping along on the current, and then poling in shore. They had kindled a fire on the bank, and joyously cooked their own dinner. Uncle Billy had caught trout, and Aunt Rose had broiled them, while they picked the berries. After dinner they had burned the remnant, and washed the dishes together.

They had gone up the hills, too, on so many picnics, and seen what had looked so blue and so far turn into woods and fields and lonely farms that they had left off expecting to see a big bear reach over their shoulders for their bread and honey. In fact, by this time they almost wished they might see one, and Essie and Ally had many a delightful bear-talk with Pincher.

One day Ally and Essie were out by themselves gathering autumn leaves, which had come as a great surprise to their southern eyes; first making them think the woods afire, and then that the world would not be a green world any more.

They had a large basket with them, with a handle at either end, so that they might lay in twigs and small branches as well as single leaves; and afterwards they were glad that they had brought that peculiar, particular basket.

They had it nearly half filled when they began to feel tired. They had been over the ground before and so were familiar with it; and Ally pointed out their favorite resting-log, and they made their way to it and sat down. It was covered with thick, velvet-green moss, and Ally sank into the deep cushion with a luxurious coo.

At the same moment she felt her feet touching something very soft. It was a dim, shady place, and she peered down curiously. The next minute she was on her knees in the grassy hollow, and Essie saw her with both arms round the very dearest, softest, hairiest little creature alive!

“Oh, Essie,” cried Ally, “just see what we’ve found! Oh, what do you suppose it is?”

“Oh, oh!” cried Essie, “isn’t it a dear!”

“Isn’t it a dear!” echoed Ally. “I just love it!”

“So do I love it! Let me feel it!” cried Essie, down in the hollow too, and half crowding Ally away, to get her own arms round the little animal. “Do you think it is a little fox?”

“Oh, no! Essie—foxes are yellowish. And it can’t be a wild-cat—wild-cats have blazing eyes, and they scratch. This is a soft sleepy baby, and it isn’t a panther—it isn’t anything cruel—oh, isn’t it cunning?”

“Perhaps it’s a quite new sort of animal,” said Essie, “and we have found it first of anybody; maybe it is one of the Bible animals—a leviathan, maybe, Ally.”

Ally didn’t answer. She was holding the little warm flat foot in her hand, and looking the little creature over. “I guess it’s a baby bear, Essie,” she said. “Bears don’t have tails, you know, and this hasn’t. Uncle Billy’ll know. Essie, if it is a bear, it’s our very own bear, and we can have it.”

“Yes, we can, and take it home! Oh, dear little bear!” cried Essie.

The children sat down by the little fellow in the leaves, and gave themselves up to perfect delight. They examined his ears, and his paws with the long claws, and they smoothed and poored his thick fur, and put their faces down to his; and then they rubbed his little stomach while he lay on his back with his feet curled up in the air, enjoying it all, winking and blinking—the most lovable little brown rogue ever to be seen! Sometimes he lay still, then again he moved in the leaves, sleepy, snuffling, nuzzling.

“Is he too heavy for us to carry?” asked Ally. “If I stoop, and you put his arms round my neck, and I take him pick-a-back?”

Essie shook her head. “I don’t believe he would like to be carried that way. What if we put him in our basket? He’d like lying on the leaves.”

“Why, yes,” said Ally. “He’s always lying on leaves and grass. Let’s do it. We oughtn’t to let him stay out here in the woods all night, all alone.”

“Of course not,” said Essie. “What a bad mother he must have had to go and leave him here!”

“Perhaps some hunter shot her,” said Ally.