"Fishes?" says the echo. "Yes, fishes," repeats Halicarnassus, in a louder tone. "Yes, it must have been the fishes," murmurs the echo. "Goodness gracious me!" ejaculates Halicarnassus, with the voice of a giant; "how many fishes have you caught?" "Oh! yes," waking up and hastening to appease his wrath; "eight,--chiefly cod." Indignation chokes his speech. Meanwhile I wake up still further, and, instead of standing before him like a culprit, beard him like an avenging Fury, and upbraid him with his deception and desertion. He attempts to defend himself, but is overpowered. Conscious guilt dyes his face, and remorse gnaws at the roots of his tongue. "Sinful heart makes feeble hand." We walk silently towards the woods. We meet a small boy with a tin pail and thirty-six fishes in it. We accost him. "Are these fishes for sale?" asks Halicarnassus. "Bet they be!" says small boy, with energy. Halicarnassus looks meaningly at me. I look meaningly at Halicarnassus, and both look meaningly at our empty basket. "Won't you tell?" says Halicarnassus. "No; won't you?" Halicarnassus whistles, the fishes are transferred from pan to basket, and we walk away as "chirp as a cricket," reach the sylvan party, and are speedily surrounded. "O what beauties! Who caught them? How many are there?" "Thirty-six," says Halicarnassus, in a lordly, thoroughbred way. "I caught 'em." "In a tin pan," I exclaim, disgusted with his conceit, and determined to "take him down." A cry of rage from Halicarnassus, a shout of derision from the party. "And how many did you catch, pray?" demands he. "Eight,--all cods," I answer, placidly. Tolerably satisfied with our aquatic experience, we determined to resume the mountains, but in a milder form; before which, however, it became necessary to do a little shopping. An individual--one of the party, whose name I will not divulge, and whose identity you never can conjecture, so it isn't worth while to exhaust yourself with guessing--found one day, while she was in the country, that she had walked a hole through the bottom of her boots. How she discovered this fact is of no moment; but, upon investigating the subject, she ascertained that it could scarcely be said with propriety that there was a hole in her boots, but, to use a term which savors of the street, though I employ it literally, there WASN'T ANYTHING ELSE. Now the fact of itself is not worthy of remark. That the integrity of a pair of boots should yield to the continued solicitations of time, toil, bone, and muscle, is too nearly a matter of everyday occurrence to excite alarm. The "irrepressible conflict" between leather and land has, so far as I know, been suspended but once since "Adam delved and Eve span,"