cordial goodness of Judge Sharp that no grief could have resisted.

"Please, sir," said Mary, struggling faintly in the arms of her noble
friend--"please, sir, I can walk very well."

"And I can carry you very well--why not? Come, now for a climb."

And away strode the great-hearted man, holding her up that she might
gaze on the scenery over his shoulder.

Isabel followed close, helping herself up the steep rocks, now by
catching hold of a spice-bush and shaking off all its ripe golden
blossoms; now drawing down the loops of a grape-vine and swinging
forward on it, encouraged in each new effort by the hearty
commendations of her new friend.

At last they reached the summit of a detached ridge of rocks that rose
like a fortification back of the highway. Judge Sharp sat down upon a
shelf cushioned like an easy-chair with the greenest moss and placed
the children at his feet.

A true lover of nature himself, he did not speak, or insist upon
forcing exclamations of delight from the children who shared the
glorious view with him. But he looked now and then into Mary Fuller's
face, and was satisfied with all that he saw there.

He turned and glanced also into the beautiful eyes of little Isabel.
They were wandering dreamily from object to object, searching, as it
were, along the misty horizon for some sign of her dead mother. It was
her heart rather than her intellect that wandered over that