This resolve, with some others, had eventually to go by the board; but of this much we made sure when we bought, that there was water enough running in a satisfactory flume some two miles from our land. The part which had to be taken more or less on trust was the piping of the water to our little settlement, and the dividing of it in a fair and workable manner; this has given us more trouble than we would care to undertake again. The climate, too, had to be carefully examined, even in California. And the view meant a great deal to us; we were very unwilling to settle in a plain or valley, where soon our own windbreak trees would be the only outlook, year in, year out. A school within reach for the younger boy was another point about which I was resolved to be stubborn. Then, though we had so unhesitatingly chosen the absolute freedom of country life, in preference to pretentious villadom, we did not want isolation. I was haunted with the remembrance of those terribly lonely farms which one passes as the train rushes through Kansas and Missouri, where each desolate building stands absolutely surrounded by miles and miles of dreary-looking prairie waste. We realised before long that if we could find a place fulfilling some of the most essential qualities for which we were striving, we should have to let the rest go. Indeed, in our diligent search, which brought us into contact with so many ranchers of several nationalities, we heard and saw so much that was discouraging, that we determined not to take any definite or binding steps for some time, but go south, see how we liked the climate and other conditions of San Miguel, and then make our decision. There is something of the same spirit of jealousy between San Francisco and San Miguel as there is (or used to be) between Manchester and Liverpool; we could therefore hear very little but the proverbial faint praise of San Miguel while in the North. All the same, we were resolved to try to find a better climate, after travelling six thousand miles in search of it. (_To be continued._) [Illustration: YOUNG EYES.] OLD EYES AND YOUNG EYES. BY HELEN MARION BURNSIDE. Oh, the young eyes looking forward Through the rosy mists of hope; Oh, the young feet, glad and eager, As they mount the sun-lit slope! "'Twill grow fairer"--youth is saying, "Better things before us lie, Ah, how beautiful and happy Looks the land of by-and-by!" Oh, the old eyes looking backward, From the hill-tops chill and wide, Ere the old feet, in the sunset, Journey down the further side: "Life was fairer"--age is saying "In the morning's golden glow-- Ah, how beautiful and happy, Was the land of long ago!"