"He sleeps propped up with pillows, dear, almost as straight as he would be in a chair," replied Mrs. March. "Oh, dear," cried Rob, "isn't that awful! Why didn't you ever tell us, mamma? Isn't he awful tired? What makes people not have asthma in Colorado, anyhow?" "Which question first, Rob?" said Mrs. March. "I haven't told you, because papa dislikes very much to have any thing said about it. Yes: he is very tired all the time. He never feels rested in the morning as you do. I don't know why people never have asthma in Colorado; but I think it must be because the air is so very dry there. They never have any rain there from October to April, and the country is very high; some of the towns where people live are twice as high as the highest mountains you ever saw." "Mamma!" exclaimed Rob, with so loud and earnest a voice that both Mrs. March and Nelly gave a little jump. "Mamma, if it's the being so high up that does the good, why couldn't we go to the Himalayas instead? Oh, it's perfectly splendid there! just let me read you about it," and Rob ran back to the table for his "Cliff Climbers," and was about to begin to read aloud from it. Mrs. March could not help laughing: and Nelly laughed too; for Nelly, although she was no older than Rob, was very much ahead of him in her studies at school, and she knew very well where the Himalaya mountains were, and that there would be no way of living there comfortably even if it were not quite too far to go. "But, Rob,--" began Mrs. March. "You just wait till I read you, mamma," interrupted Rob; "you haven't read the 'Cliff Climbers,' and you don't know any thing about it. Perhaps the doctors don't know how many good things grow there; and the mountains are five miles high, some of them. I'm sure papa couldn't have the asthma as high up as that: could he?" "My dear little boy," said Mrs. March, putting her hand on the book and shutting it up, "you are always too hasty: you must stop and listen. Nobody could live five miles up in the air. That would be as much too high as this is too low; and things which sound very fine to read about would be very inconvenient in real life." "Yes," interrupted Rob, "an elephant tore down their cabin one night,--just tramped right over it, and smashed it all flat as we would an ant-hill. That wouldn't be very nice: but we needn't live where the elephants come; we could just go out to hunt them in the summer." Rob's eyes were dark blue, and when he was eager and excited they seemed to turn black, and to be twice their usual size. He was so eager now that his eyes were fairly dancing in his head. He was possessed of this idea about going to live in the Himalaya mountains, and nothing could stop him. "They're all heathen there too, mamma, and wouldn't papa like that? He could preach to them, don't you know? Oh, it would be splendid! and I could collect seeds just like these cliff climbers, and stuff birds, and make lots of money sending them back to this country."