You have, perhaps, seen amber, and know its rich, sunshiny color, and
its fragrance when rubbed; and do you also know that rubbing will make
amber attract things somewhat as a magnet does? Jeanie's beads had all
these properties, but some others besides, wonderful and lovely; and it
is of those particularly that I wish to tell you. Each bead has inside
of it some tiny thing, incased as if it had grown in the amber; and
Jeanie is never tired of looking at, and wondering about, them. Here is
one with a delicate bit of ferny moss shut up, as it were, in a globe of
yellow light. In another is the tiniest fly,--his little wings
outspread, and raised for flight. Again, she can show us a bee lodged in
one bead that looks like solid honey, and a little bright-winged beetle
in another. This one holds two slender pine-needles lying across each
other, and here we see a single scale of a pine-cone; while yet another
shows an atom of an acorn-cup, fit for a fairy's use. I wish you could
see the beads, for I cannot tell you the half of their beauty. Now,
where do you suppose they came from, and how did little Scotch Jeanie
come into possession of such a treasure?

All she knows about it is, that her grandfather,--old Kenneth, who
cowers now all day in the chimney-corner,--once, years ago when he was a
young lad, went down upon the seashore after a great storm, hoping to
help save something from the wreck of the "Goshawk," that had gone
ashore during the night; and there among the slippery seaweeds his foot
had accidentally uncovered a clear, shining lump of amber, in which all
these little creatures were embedded. Now, Kenneth loved a pretty
Highland lass; and, when she promised to be his bride, he brought her a
necklace of amber beads. He had carved them himself out of his lump of
amber, working carefully to save in each bead the prettiest insect or
moss, and thinking, while he toiled hour after hour, of the delight with