have not gone far yet. We will go back to the bend, and wait while you call them, Klein."

So they all walked back to the bend, and Klein, who had become very sober at the mention of the dens, called loudly,

Mog, Mog! Come back, you and Heft!" His voice rang down every turn. In a moment

more they heard the sound of feet clumsily running, and then Mog and Heft appeared, two dark little figures coming out of the darkness. "Is that you, Mog?" said Janet.

trying to catch up with us?"

"Were you

Yes," said Mog. "Heft and I wanted to come

Prue looked at them and smiled, for their faces seemed pleasanter than when she saw them first. She wanted to tell them so, but hesitated as to how she should express it.

We dipped our hands in the brook and splashed our faces," said Mog, complacently.

"That's good," said Janet, in an approving tone. "Prue and I do that every day."

"Not in our brook," said Heft, raising his heavy eyebrows.

"No, in our own brook," Janet replied, "close by where we live."

"Their brook may have something to do with ours," suggested Prue. "We may be going right under our own front yard now."

"That's true," said Janet, looking up, "and those gnarly black things overhead may be the roots of our apple-tree."

The children now walked on together, Klein and Guld ahead, the Kanter girls next, with Mog and Heft behind.

"This way," said Guld at length, pointing to a turn at the left.

A

XX

-Robert Browning.

S they passed round the turn they heard a sound of hammering, and suddenly came

into view of what seemed to be a workshop with great numbers of kobolds actively employed. Some were making bowl-shaped dishes, and some were cutting out blocks of stone. All the kobolds as they looked up at the visitors took off their caps to Guld.

"That's a pretty bowl," said Janet to the nearest kobold. "You grind out the inside, don't you? I didn't know bowls were made that way."

Mog and Heft were very much interested. They pressed up close to the kobold so as to watch him, and he gave them each a round stone and showed them how to grind. They went to work at once, and hardly noticed when Guld said to the kobold, Keep them with you till we come back," and then beckoned the Kanter girls away.

After leaving this scene and making another abrupt turn, they came to a very narrow aperture, through which they went, bending low to avoid the rock overhead. Guld, whom Klein no longer carried, slipped quickly ahead as leader.

"Guld knows," said Klein, "but I have never been this way before."

"How comes Guld to know so much?" asked Janet, groping along in the dark behind Klein.

"Oh! he's the heir, he is going to be king. He is brought up to be a king, and he knows."

At this moment they came out into space and light, and found themselves in a magnificent cavern, paved with crystallized granite, and overhung with crystals, red, white, and purple. All around the walls were set hollowed stones crusted inside with crystals, and in each of these a light was burning. Every light was reflected again and again on roof and walls, so that the whole cavern shone with splendor.

"Oh! oh! how beautiful!" cried the Kanter girls.

Little Guld laughed joyously. The queer old look softened on his face, and he began to run about like a happy child. Janet, always ready for a frolic, proposed that they should run races over the

flinty floor. The track was chosen, and the Kanter girls and the two little kobolds stood side by side, ready for a start.

One, two, three, off!" cried Janet, and away they flew.

Janet and Prue were light-footed and very quick in any race, but, run as swiftly as they might, little Guld always kept ahead, his eyes shining and his black hair tossing. Again and again they tried the race, but Guld always won.

66

It is because he is brought up to be a king," said Klein, who came in last.

In the next race, as they sped along over the floor, Janet threw the knitting-needle off to the left with all her force, and it tinkled on the crystal as it fell. Guld sprang after it, caught it up with an exultant cry, flew back to his place, and shot like an arrow to its mark, reaching the opposite wall just a second before Janet gained it.

You are a king!" she exclaimed. "I almost wish you were our little brother."

"I can keep you both here now to be my sisters," said little Guld, lifting the bright needle like a sceptre. "You have lost your power to command

me

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'Oh! no," said Janet, composedly, "I pulled the