"I don't care:" said Rob, "it's splendid. I'm going to make a museum, and I shall have the shelves full of it. But, mamma," he said sadly, "there isn't any use in our looking for a mine. When I told one of the men that we were going to see if we couldn't find a mine, he just laughed, and he said that every inch of the ground all round here belonged to people that thought they'd got mines. All those little bits of piles of stones, with just a stick stuck up by them, every one of those means that a man's been digging there to find silver; and they're just as thick! why, you can't go ten steps without coming on one! They call them 'claims.'" "That's so," said Long Billy; "and I'll tell ye what I call 'em. I call 'em gravestones, them little sticks stuck up on stone heaps: that's what most on 'em are, graves where some poor feller's buried a lot o' hope and some money." Nelly turned her great dark eyes full on Long Billy when he said this. Her face grew very sad: she understood exactly what he meant. Rob did not understand. He looked only puzzled. "Graves!" exclaimed he. "Why, what do you call them graves for, Billy? There isn't any thing buried in them." Billy looked a little ashamed of his speech; he did not often indulge in anything so much like a flight of fancy as this. "Oh, nothin'!" he said. "That's only a silly way o' puttin' it." "I don't think so, Billy," said Nelly. "I think it's real true. Don't you know, Rob, how awfully you and I felt when we thought we'd found that mine up in the Pass, and it turned out nothing but mica? We felt just as if we'd lost something." "I didn't," said Rob; "I just felt mad; and it makes me feel mad now to think of it: how we lugged those heavy old stones all that way. I wish I'd saved some for my museum though. All the boys here have museums, a man told me, and perhaps I won't find any of that kind of stone here." After dinner, they all drove down into the valley to look at their new home. The road wound down in a zigzag way among a great many low hills. Sometimes for quite a distance among these hills, you cannot see the valley at all; and then all of a sudden you look right out into it. As they went lower, they saw more and more of it, until at last they reached it and came out on the level ground, where they could look up and down the whole length of the valley. Long Billy was driving them: when they reached the spot where the whole valley lay in full view, he stopped the horses and, turning round to Mrs. March, said:-- "Well, mum, did I tell the truth or not?" "No, Billy, you did not," replied Mrs. March, very gravely. Billy looked surprised, and was just about to speak when Mrs. March continued:-- "You did not tell half how beautiful it is." "Ah!" said Billy. "Well, that kind o' lie I don't mind bein' charged with." "Oh, papa! let me get out!" cried Nelly. "I want to walk in this grass. Is this our grass?"