"'You won't go to Yale,' said I, 'and you will go to Harvard. Let us strike a medium, Fred, a happy medium is the most pleasant thing in the world--go to Harvard one year, the next to Yale, then, sir, I thought of your church--' and, said I, 'finish off at old Columbia, it'll be a compliment to your guardian.'" "Thank you," said the Judge, with a demure smile; "thank you for remembering my church so kindly; but what did my ward say to this?" "Why, sir, would you believe it, he answered in the most disrespectful manner, that he went to college to got an education, and Harvard was good enough for that. "'But,' said I, 'take my medium and you will try Harvard, and Yale, and old Columbia, too; only think what an introduction it would be into all sorts of the best religious society.' "Well, sir, what do you think he did but laugh in the most irreverent manner, and ask me if I couldn't point out a Universalist institution that he could finish up at. I declare, Judge, it almost broke my heart." "Well, well, let us hope it will all turn out right," answered the Judge, consolingly--"look, madam, look, what a lovely hollow that is!" They were now descending the mountain passes. Broken hills and lovely green valleys rose and sunk along their rapid progress. Never on earth was scenery more varied and lovely. Little emerald hollows shaded with hemlock, overhanging brooklets that came stealing like broken diamond threads down the mountain sides to hide beneath their shadows, were constantly appearing and disappearing along the road. It was impossible for little Mary to sit still when these heavenly glimpses presented themselves. Her cheeks burned, her eyes kindled; her very limbs trembled with suppressed impatience; but she dared not lean forward, and could only obtain tantalizing glances of the sparkling brooks, and the soft, green mosses that clung around the mountain cliffs where they shot over the road. They passed through several villages, winding in and out through mountain passes, where the hills were so interlapped that it seemed impossible to guess how the carriage would extricate itself from the green labyrinth. Nothing could be more delicate and vivid than the foliage that clothed the hill-sides, for the primeval growth of hemlocks had been cut away from the hills, and a second crop of luxuriant young trees, beech, oak, and maple, mottled with rich clusters of mountain ash, and the deep green of white pines, covered the whole country. All at once the coachman drew up his horses on a curve of the highway. The carriage was completely buried in a valley along which wound the river, whose sweet noise they had long heard among the trees. "Now children, look out," said the Judge, laughing pleasantly; "look out and tell me how we are to get through the hills."