He had turned his back on the semi-circular range of hills, and emerged into a tract of country much more extensive, though still very broken. Huge masses of rock salt, covered with crystals whose prismatic forms lent them a startling brilliancy, gleamed upon his sight, and the green sweep of land between was diversified by many small cottages built of the gray rock which abounded throughout the country. The narrow path bordered with vines and wild roses lured him on, until the sweet accents of a female voice broke upon his ear, and he found that his path would lead him to trespass upon the enclosure of a cottage which appeared to be one of the neatest and best arranged among them. The painter paused, and his eye, (that morning destined to agreeable surprises,) readily discovered a group without the door, which immediately called out his pencil and pocket port-folio. A very bright-eyed child had thrown his chubby little arms around his father’s neck, and seemed resolved upon detaining him from his day’s labor; while the young wife, with eyes and lips scarcely less bright than those of the child, vainly endeavored to attract the infant with the most enticing toys. At length the father succeeded in unclasping the dimpled hands, and placing the baby on the floor; but the child still endeavored to detain him by holding the skirts of his coat. “Philip seems determined that you shall not go to-day,” said the young woman; “perhaps there is a meaning in his warning.” “If I listened to all your signs and warnings, I should very seldom leave you,” replied the husband. “I must go and that quickly, in spite of my persevering little pet.” “But you will come back very soon?” “I cannot even promise that,” replied the miner; for the husband was a laborer in the extensive salt mines, whose crystallizations produce so beautiful an effect in the distance. “We have a tremendous piece of work before us to-day, and there is no telling when it will be finished.” “Would to God it were safely over.” “Don’t look so pale and frightened, Mary; worse jobs are done every day—but they will call me sluggard if I loiter here—so good-bye, good-bye, darlings.” “Heaven preserve you,” responded the wife; and she turned with feelings half of dread and half of hope to the cottage door. “Just such a morning,” muttered an old woman who sat crouching in the chimney corner—“just such a morning, bright as this,—and a black night followed the bright day—a black, black night.” “Now the saints save us!” exclaimed the young woman: “who ever heard Dame Ursula talking away at such a rate before? As sure as fate something unusual will happen. What is it you were saying grand-dame?” she added in a louder tone, approaching the thin, withered old hag who had crept slowly toward the door-step, and seating herself there, continued to mutter and mumble half indistinct words. “Storms follow the sunshine—storms and tempests and thick darkness.”