“‘This is indeed most lovely--most enchanting!’ said the youth to himself. ‘Well and truly has my guide performed his promise.’ Saying this, he looked around for his guide, but he had disappeared. The young man waited for a time, but his guide did not return. At last he began to feel weary, and cast about for a place to lie down; but no such place appeared. The floor of the mighty hall was covered with precious stones, but they were so sharp and angular that they would have cut his flesh, if he had attempted to lie upon them. Pretty soon, hunger was added to the young man’s wants. But how could he satisfy it? There were emeralds, and rubies, and sapphires, and diamonds, but neither meat nor bread. At last he turned around, and began to search for the way out of the grotto; first filling his pockets with the richest and rarest gems he could find. But the more he sought for the passage, the more remote he seemed to be from it. He, however, continued to wander on, but all in vain. At last he became frantic; he threw up his hands, and tore his hair, and ran fiercely from place to place, making the arches ring with his frightful screams. ‘Take your gold, take your jewels!’ said he; ‘and give me rest, give me bread!’ And, repeating this by night and by day, the young man continued to run wildly from place to place; and though forty years have rolled away since he entered the enchanted cave, he is still there, and is still unable to obtain rest or appease his hunger!” “Is that all?” said Alexis, as the hunter paused in his narration. “Yes,” said Linsk; “and let it warn you and all others not to go into the mountain, to steal the gems and the gold that belong to the emperor.” “The story is a good one,” said Alexis, “and no doubt it has been used to frighten people from interfering with the emperor’s mines; but it is an allegory, which bears a deeper meaning to my mind. It teaches us that riches cannot bring rest or health, and that a person surrounded with gold and gems may still be a most wretched being. Those very gems, indeed, may be the cause of his distress, as they may have been obtained by crime, or avarice, or other unlawful means.” (_To be continued._) [Illustration: Lion and mouse] The Lion and the Mouse; A FABLE. A lion was once going to war; he had buckled on his sword, and gathered his forces, and, with the monkey and the bear supporting his long robe behind, he was proudly marching over the plain at the head of his army. As he was proceeding, it chanced that his majesty encountered a mouse, dancing merrily over the ground. The king paused, and observed the little dancer with a grim smile of satisfaction. At this the bear grumbled, and the monkey sneered, for his majesty being in a warlike humor, they thought it meet that everybody else should be so too; but they were both speedily silenced by the lion, who spoke as follows: