for breath-just as Hans had seen it on the day of his ascent. And Gluck stopped and looked at it, and then at the Golden River, not five hundred yards above him; and he thought of the dwarf's words, that no one could succeed, except in his first attempt; and he tried to pass the dog, but it whined piteously, and Gluck stopped again. "Poor beastie," said Gluck, "it'll be dead when I come down again, if I don't help it." Then he looked closer and closer at it, and its eye turned on him so mournfully that he could not stand it. "Confound the King and his gold too," said Gluck; and he opened the flask, and poured all the water into the dog's mouth.

The dog sprang up and stood on its hind legs. Its tail disappeared, its ears became long, longer, silky, golden; its nose became very red, its eyes became very twinkling; in three seconds the dog was gone, and before Gluck stood his old acquaintance, the King of the Golden River.

"Thank you," said the monarch; "but don't be frightened, it's all right"; for Gluck showed manifest symptoms of consternation at this unlooked-for reply to his last observation. "Why didn't you come before," continued the dwarf, "instead of sending me those rascally brothers of yours, for me to have the trouble of turning into stones? Very hard stones they make, too."

"Oh dear me!" said Gluck; "have you really been so cruel?"

"Cruel?" said the dwarf; "they poured unholy water into my stream; do you suppose I'm going to allow that?"

"Why," said Gluck, "I am sure, sir-your

Majesty, I mean-they got the water out of the church font."

"Very probably," replied the dwarf; "but," and his countenance grew stern as he spoke, "the water which has been refused to the cry of the weary and dying is unholy, though it had been blessed by every saint in heaven; and the water which is found

in the vessel of mercy is holy, though it had been defiled with corpses.'

So saying, the dwarf stooped and plucked a lily that grew at his feet. On its white leaves hung three drops of clear dew, and the dwarf shook them into the flask which Gluck held in his hand. "Cast these into the river," he said, "and descend on the other side of the mountains into the Treasure Valley. And so good speed."

As he spoke, the figure of the dwarf became indistinct. The playing colors of his robe formed themselves into a prismatic mist of dewy light; he stood for an instant veiled with them as with the belt of a broad rainbow. The colors grew faint, the mist rose into the air; the monarch had evaporated.

And Gluck climbed to the brink of the Golden River, and its waves were as clear as crystal and as brilliant as the sun.

And when he cast the three drops of dew into the stream, there opened where they fell a small circular whirlpool, into which the waters descended with a musical noise.

Gluck stood watching it for some time, very much disappointed, because not only the river was not turned into gold, but its waters seemed much diminished in quantity. Yet he obeyed his friend the dwarf, and descended the other side of the mountains, toward the Treasure Valley; and, as he went, he thought he heard the noise of water working its way under the ground. And when he came in sight of the Treasure Valley, behold, a river, like the Golden River, was springing from a new cleft of the rocks above it, and was flowing in

innumerable streams among the dry heaps of red sand.

And as Gluck gazed, fresh grass sprang beside the new streams, and creeping plants grew, and climbed among the moistening soil. Young flowers opened suddenly along the river sides, as stars leap out when twilight is deepening, and thickets of myrtle and tendrils of vine cast lengthening shadows over the valley as they grew. And thus the Treasure Valley became a garden again, and the inheritance which had been lost by cruelty was regained by love.

And Gluck went and dwelt in the valley, and the poor were never driven from his door; so that his barns became full of corn, and his house of treasure. And, for him, the river had, according to the dwarf's promise, become a River of Gold.

And to this day the inhabitants of the valley point out the place where the three drops of holy dew were cast into the stream, and trace the course of the Golden River under the ground, until it emerges in the Treasure Valley. And at the top of the cataract of the Golden River are still to be seen two black stones, round which the waters howl mournfully every day at sunset; and these stones are still called, by the people of the valley,

The Black Brothers.

T would be a rather hard thing to choose the very best fairy story, but there are a great many persons who would say that, everything considered, The King of the Golden River is the finest. Many like The Ugly Duckling, by Hans Christian Andersen, and it certainly is a beautiful story. We must

remember in comparing the two that The Ugly Duckling has probably lost something in being translated into the English, for it is almost impossible to make a translation as perfect as the original. For the reason just given, perhaps, The King of the Golden River excels as literature, and almost every boy or girl is glad to study the story enough to understand what makes it so very fine.

As soon as we have read it we feel that it is an interesting story, and that we are really the better for reading it. We cannot follow the fortunes of little Gluck without feeling our hearts grow warmer at his kindly acts, or without knowing that the hospitality, self-denial, sympathy and generosity that he shows are some of the finest traits of human character. Moreover, we are inspired with the desire to be like Gluck, and to curb any inclination to become like his two dark brothers.

What we wish to do, however, in this brief study, is to try to find some other points less noticeable, perhaps, but equally interesting, in which this story excels many others. Now, one of these points is the remarkably brilliant way in which things are described by Mr. Ruskin.

We remember that he was a famous English writer who had a very high regard for painting, and who wrote about pictures until he made the world believe many of the sensible things he said. Naturally, the writer who had such an appreciation for pictures would be particular in description. In other words, we should expect him to paint for us beautiful word pictures. In this we are not disappointed, when we reach, for instance, the description of the beautiful morning when Hans started out on