As he was preparing to go, he suddenly remembered the dislike between the two families, and the prohibitions inscribed upon the tablet over the entrance.  Determined to win his prize at any cost, he resolved to confide the whole history to his mother.  Ju-Kiouan had also told her love to Madame Tou.  The names of Pearl and Jasper troubled the good matrons so much that, not daring to set themselves against what appeared to be the will of the gods, they both went again to the temple of Fo.

The bronze oracle replied that this marriage was in reality the true interpretation of the dreams, and that to prevent it would be to incur the eternal anger of the gods.  Touched by the entreaties of the mothers, and also by slight mutual advances, the two fathers gave way and consented to a reconciliation of the families.  The two old friends, on meeting each other again, were astonished to find what frivolous causes had separated them for so many years, and mourned sincerely over all the pleasure they had lost in being deprived of each other’s society.  The marriage of the children was celebrated with much rejoicing, and the Jasper and the Pearl were no longer obliged to hold intercourse by means of a reflection on the water.  The wall was removed, and the wavelets rippled placidly between the two pavilions on the lake.

—­H.S.  Conant.

[Illustration:  IN THE MOUNTAINS.]

IN THE MOUNTAINS.

A line of Walter Savage Landor’s, a poet for poets, was an especial favorite with Southey, and, we believe, with Lamb.  It occurs in “Gebir,” and drops from the lips of one of its characters, who, being suddenly shown the sea, exclaims,

    “Is this the mighty ocean?—­is this all?”

The feeling which underlies this line is generally the first emotion we have when brought face to face with the stupendous forms of Nature.  It is the feeling inspired by mountains, the first sight of which is disappointing.  They are grand, but not quite what we were led to expect from pictures and books, and, still more, from our own imaginations.  The more we see mountains, the more they grow upon us, until, finally, they are clothed with a grandeur not, in all cases, belonging to them—­our Mount Washingtons over-topping the Alps, and the Alps the Himmalayas.  The poets assist us in thus magnifying them.

The American poets have translated the mountains of their native land into excellent verse.  Everybody remembers Mr. Bryant’s “Monument Mountain,” for its touching story, and its clearly-defined descriptions of scenery.

Mr. Stedman has a mountain of his own, though perhaps only in Dream-land; and Mr. Bayard Taylor has a whole range of them, the sight of which once filled him with rapture: