When Harry had finished reading, the colonel gallantly declared that the story was the best they had had. Mrs. Armstrong received this as a joke, and begged him not to be so unsparing.  
"Ah! Mrs. Armstrong," returned he laughing, "you are not old enough yet, to know the truth from a joke. Don't you agree with me about the story, Mrs. Cathcart?"
 
"I think it is very pretty and romantic. Such men as Uncle Peter are not very common in the world. The story is not too true to Nature."
 
This she said in a tone intended to indicate superior acquaintance with the world and its nature. I fear Mrs. Cathcart and some others whom I could name, mean by Nature something very bad indeed, which yet an artist is bound to be loyal to. The colonel however seemed to be of a different opinion.
 
"If there never was such a man as Uncle Peter," said he, "there ought to have been; and it is all the more reason for putting him into a story that he is not to be found in the world."
 
"Bravo!" cried I. "You have answered a great question in a few words."
 
"I don't know," rejoined our host. "Have I? It seems to me as plain as the catechism."
 
I thought he might have found a more apt simile, but I held my peace.
 
Next morning, I walked out in the snow. Since the storm of that terrible night, it had fallen again quietly and plentifully; and now in the sunlight, the world—houses and trees, ponds and rivers—was like a creation, more than blocked out, but far from finished—in marble.
 
"And this," I said to myself, as I regarded the wondrous loveliness with which the snow had at once clothed and disfigured the bare branches of the trees, "this is what has come of the chaos of falling flakes! To this repose of beauty has that storm settled and sunk! Will it not be so with our mental storms as well?"
 
But here the figure displeased me; for those were not the true right shapes of the things; and the truth does not stick to things, but shows itself out of them.
 
"This lovely show," I said, "is the result of a busy fancy. This white world is the creation of a poet such as Shelley, in whom the fancy was too much for the intellect. Fancy settles upon anything; half destroys its form, half beautifies it with something that is not its own. But the true creative imagination, the form-seer, and the form-bestower, falls like the rain in the spring night, vanishing amid the roots of the trees; not settling upon them in clouds of wintry white, but breaking forth from them in clouds of summer green."
 
And then my thoughts very naturally went from Nature to my niece; and I asked myself whether within the last few days I had not seen upon her countenance the expression of a mental spring-time. For the mind has its seasons four, with many changes, as well as the world, only that the cycles are generally longer: they can hardly be more mingled than as here in our climate.
 
Let me confess, now that the subject of the confession no longer exists, that there had been something about Adela that, pet-child of mine as she was, had troubled me. In all her behaviour, so far as I had had any opportunity of judging, she had been as good as my desires at least. But there was a want in her face, a certain flatness of expression which I did not like. I love the common with all my heart, but I hate the common-place; and, foolish old bachelor that I am, the common-place in a woman troubles me, annoys me, makes me miserable. Well, it was something of the common-place in Adela's expression that had troubled me. Her eyes were clear, with lovely long dark lashes, but somehow the light in them had been always the same; and occasionally when I talked to her of the things I most wished her to care about, there was such an immobile condition of the features, associated with such a ready assent in words, that I felt her notion of what I meant must be something very different indeed from what I did mean. Her face looked as if it were made of something too thick for the inward light to shine through—wax, and not living muscle and skin. The fact was, the light within had not been kindled, else that face of hers would have been ready enough to let it shine out. Hitherto she had not seemed to me to belong at all to that company that praises God with sweet looks, as Thomas Hood describes Ruth as doing. What was wanting I had found it difficult to define. Her soul was asleep. She was dreaming a child's dreams, instead of seeing a woman's realities—realities that awake the swift play of feature, as the wind of God arouses the expression of a still landscape. So there seemed after all a gulf between her and me. She did not see what I saw, feel what I felt, seek what I sought. Occasionally even, the delicate young girl, pure and bright as the snow that hung on the boughs around me, would shock the wizened old bachelor with her worldliness—a worldliness that lay only in the use of current worldly phrases of selfish contentment, or selfish care. Ah! how little do young beauties understand of the pitiful emotions which they sometimes rouse in the breasts of men whom they suppose to be absorbed in admiration of them! But for faith that these girls are God's work and only half made yet, one would turn from them with sadness, almost painful dislike, and take refuge with some noble-faced grandmother, or withered old maid, whose features tell of sorrow and patience. And the beauty would think with herself that such a middle-aged gentleman did not admire pretty girls, and was severe and unkind and puritanical; whereas it was the lack of beauty that made him turn away; the disappointment of a face—dull, that ought to be radiant; or the presence of only that sort of beauty, which in middle age, except the deeper nature should meantime come into play, would be worse than common-place—would be mingled with the trail of more or less guilty sensuality. Many a woman at forty is repulsive, whom common men found at twenty irresistibly attractive; and many a woman at seventy is lovely to the eyes of the man who would have been compelled to allow that she was decidedly plain at seventeen.
 
"Maidens' bairns are aye weel guided," says the Scotch proverb; and the same may be said of bachelors' wives. So I will cease the strain, and return to Adela, the change in whom first roused it.
 
Of late, I had seen a glimmer of something in her countenance which I had never seen before—a something which, the first time I perceived it, made me say to her, in my own hearing only: "Ah, my dear, we shall understand each other by and by!" And now and then the light in her eye would be dimmed as by the fore-shadowing of a tear, when there was no immediate and visible cause to account for it; and—which was very strange—I could not help fancying she began to be a little shy of her old uncle.—Could it be that she was afraid of his insight reaching to her heart, and reading there more than she was yet willing to confess to herself?—But whatever the cause of the change might be, there was certainly a responsiveness in her, a readiness to meet every utterance, and take it home, by which the vanity of the old bachelor would have been flattered to the full, had not his heart come first, and forestalled the delight.
 
So absorbed was I in considering these things, that the time passed like one of my thoughts; and before I knew I found myself on the verge of the perilous moor over which Harry had ridden in the teeth and heart of the storm. How smooth yet cruel it looked in its thick covering of snow! There was heather beneath, within which lay millions of purple bells, ready to rush out at the call of summer, and ring peals of merry gladness, making the desolate place not only blossom but rejoice as the rose. And there were cold wells of brown water beneath that snow, of depth unknown, which nourished nothing but the green grass that hid the cold glare of their presence from the eyes of the else warefully affrighted traveller. And I thought of Adela when I thought of the heather; and of some other woman whom I had known, when I thought of the wells.
 
When I came home, I told Adela where I had been, and what a desolate place it was. And the flush that rose on her pale cheek was just like the light of the sunset which I had left shining over the whiteness of that snowy region. And I said to myself: "It is so. And I trust it may be well."
 
As I walked home, I had bethought myself of a story which I had brought down with me in the hope of a chance of reading it, but which Adela's illness had put out of my mind; for it was only a child's story; and although I hoped older people might find something in it, it would have been absurd to read it without the presence of little children. So I said to Adela:
 
"Don't you know any little children in Purleybridge, Adela?"
 
"Oh! yes; plenty."
 
"Couldn't you ask some of them one night, and I would tell them a story. I think at this season they should have a share in what is going, and I have got one I think they would like."
 
"I shall be delighted. I will speak to papa about it at once. But next time—."
 
"Yes, I know. Next time Harry Armstrong was going to read; but to tell you the truth, Adela, I doubt if he will be ready. I know he is dreadfully busy just now, and I believe he will be thankful to have a reprieve for a day or two, and his story, which I expect will be a good one, will be all the better for it."
 
"Then I will speak to papa about it the moment he comes in; and you will tell Mr. Henry. And mind, uncle, you take the change upon your own shoulders."
 
"Trust me, my dear," I said, as I left the room.
 
As I had anticipated, Harry was grateful. Everything was arranged. So the next evening but one, we had a merry pretty company of boys and girls, none older, or at least looking older, than twelve. It did my heart good to see how Adela made herself at home with them, and talked to them as if she were one of themselves. By the time tea was over, I had made friends with them all, which was a stroke in its way nearly equal to Chaucer's, who made friends with all the nine and twenty Canterbury pilgrims before the sun was down. And the way I did was this. I began with the one next me, asking her the question:
 
"Do you like fairy-stories?"
 
"Yes, I do," answered she, heartily.
 
"Did you ever hear of the princess with the blue foot?"
 
"No. Will you tell me, please?"
 
Then I turned to the one on my other side, and asked her:
 
"Did you ever hear of the giant that was all skin—not skin and bone, you know, but all skin?"
 
"No-o" she answered, and her round blue eyes got rounder and bluer.
 
The next was a boy. I asked him:
 
"Did you ever hear of Don Worm of Wakemup?"
 
"No. Do please tell us about it."
 
And so I asked them, round the room. And by that time all eyes were fixed upon me. Then I said:
 
"You see I cannot tell you all these stories to-night. But would you all like one of some sort?"
 
A chorus of I should filled the room.
 
"What shall it be about, then?"
 
"A wicked fairy."
 
"No; that's stupid. I'm tired of wicked fairies," said a scornful little girl.
 
"A good giant, then," said a priggish imp, with a face as round as the late plum-pudding.
 
"I am afraid I could not tell you a story about a good giant; for unfortunately all the good giants I ever heard of were very stupid; so stupid that a story would not make itself about them; so stupid, indeed, that they were always made game of by creatures not half so big or half so good; and I don't like such stories. Shall I tell you about the wicked giant that grew little children in his garden instead of radishes, and then carried them about in his waistcoat pocket, and ate one as often as he remembered he had got some?"
 
"Yes, yes; please do."
 
"He used to catch little children and plant them in his garden, where you might see them in rows, with their heads only above ground, rolling their eyes about, and growing awfully fast. He liked greedy boys best—boys that ate plum-pudding till they felt as if their belts were too tight."
 
Here the fat-faced boy stuck both his hands inside his belt.
 
"Because he was so fond of radishes," I went on, "he lived just on the borders of Giantland, where it touched on the country of common people. Now, everything in Giantland was so big, that the common people saw only a mass of awful mountains and clouds; and no living man had ever come from it, as far as anybody knew, to tell what he had seen in it.
 
"Somewhere near these borders, on the other side, by the edge of a great forest, lived a labourer with his wife and a great many children. One day Tricksey-Wee, as they called her, teased her brother Buffy-Bob, till he could not bear it any longer, and gave her a box on the ear. Tricksey-Wee cried; and Buffy-Bob was so sorry and ashamed of himself, that he cried too, and ran off into the wood. He was so long gone, that Tricksey-Wee began to be frightened, for she was very fond of her brother; and she was so sorry that she had first teased him, and then cried, that at last she ran into the wood to look for him, though there was more chance of losing herself than of finding him. And, indeed, so it seemed likely to turn out; for, running on without looking, she at length found herself in a valley she knew nothing about. And no wonder; for what she thought was a valley with round, rocky sides, was no other than the space between two of the roots of a great tree that grew on the borders of Giantland. She climbed over the side of it, and right up to what she took for a black, round-topped mountain, far away; but she soon discovered that it was close to her, and was a hollow place so great that she could not tell what it was hollowed out of. Staring at it, she found that it was a doorway; and, going nearer and staring harder, she saw the door, far in, with a knocker of iron upon it, a great many yards above her head, and as large as the anchor of a big ship. Now, nobody had ever been unkind to Tricksey-Wee, and therefore she was not afraid of anybody. For Buffy-Bob's box on the ear she did not think worth considering. So, spying a little hole at the bottom of the door, which had been nibbled by some giant mouse, she crept through it, and found herself in an enormous hall, as big as if the late Mr. Martin, R.A., had been the architect. She could not have seen the other end of it at all, except for the great fire that was burning there, diminished to a spark in the distance. Towards this fire she ran as fast as she could, and was not far from it when something fell before her with a great clatter, over which she tumbled, and went rolling on the floor. She was not much hurt, however, and got up in a moment. Then she saw that she had fallen over something not unlike a great iron bucket. When she examined it more closely, she discovered that it was a thimble; and looking up to see who had dropped it, beheld a huge face, with spectacles as big as the round windows in a church, bending over her, and looking everywhere for the thimble. Tricksey-Wee immediately laid hold of it in both her arms, and lifted it about an inch nearer to the nose of the peering giantess. This movement made the old lady see where it was, and, her finger popping into it, it vanished from the eyes of Tricksey-Wee, buried in the folds of a white stocking, like a cloud in the sky, which Mrs. Giant was busy darning. For it was Saturday night, and her husband would wear nothing but white stockings on Sunday."
 
"But how could he be so particular about white stockings on Sunday, and eat little children?" asked one of the group.
 
"Why, to be sure," I answered, "he did eat little children, but only very little ones; and if ever it crossed his mind that it was wrong to do so, he always said to himself that he wore whiter stockings on Sunday than any other giant in all Giantland.
 
"At that instant, Tricksey-Wee heard a sound like the wind in a tree full of leaves, and could not think what it could be; till, looking up, she found that it was the giantess whispering to her; and when she tried very hard, she could hear what she said well enough.
 
"'Run away, dear little girl,' she said, 'as fast as you can; for my husband will be home in a few minutes.'
 
"'But I've never been naughty to your husband,' said Tricksey-Wee, looking up in the giantess's face.
 
"'That doesn't matter. You had better go. He is fond of little children, particularly little girls!'
 
"'Oh! Then he won't hurt me.'
 
"'I am not sure of that. He is so fond of them that he eats them up; and I am afraid he couldn't help hurting you a little. He's a very good man though.'
 
"'Oh! then—' began Tricksey-Wee, feeling rather frightened; but before she could finish her sentence, she heard the sound of footsteps very far apart and very heavy. The next moment, who should come running towards her, full speed, and as pale as death, but Buffy-Bob! She held out her arms, and he ran into them. But when she tried to kiss him, she only kissed the back of his head; for his white face and round eyes were turned to the door.
 
"'Run, children; run and hide,' said the giantess.
 
"'Come, Buffy,' said Tricksey; 'yonder's a great brake; we'll hide in it.'
 
"The brake was a big broom; and they had just got into the bristles of it, when they heard the door open with a sound of thunder; and in stalked the giant. You would have thought you saw the whole earth through the door when he opened it, so wide was it; and, when he closed it, it was like nightfall.
 
"'Where is that little boy?' he cried, with a voice like the bellowing of cannon. 'He looked a very nice boy, indeed. I am almost sure he crept through the mouse hole at the bottom of the door. Where is he, my dear?'
 
"'I don't know,' answered the giantess.
 
"'But you know it is wicked to tell lies; don't you, dear?' retorted the giant.
 
"'Now, you ridiculous old Thunderthump!' said his wife, with a smile as broad as the sea in the sun; 'how can I mend your white stockings, and look after little boys? You have got plenty to last you over Sunday, I am sure. Just look what good little boys they are!'
 
"Tricksey-Wee and Buffy-Bob peered through the bristles, and discovered a row of little boys, about a dozen, with very fat faces and goggle eyes, sitting before the fire, and looking stupidly into it. Thunderthump intended the most of these for seed, and was feeding them well before planting them. Now and then, however, he could not keep his teeth off them, and would eat one by the bye, without salt."
 
* * * * *
 
"Now, you know that's all nonsense; for little children don't grow in gardens, I know. You may believe in the radish beds: I don't," said one pert little puss.
 
"I never said I did," replied I. "If the giant did, that's enough for my story. I told you the good giants are very stupid; so you may think what the bad ones are. Indeed, the giant never really tried the plan. No doubt he did plant the children, but he always pulled them up and ate them before they had a chance of increasing.
 
"He strode up to the wretched children. Now, what made them very wretched indeed was, that they knew if they could only keep from eating, and grow thin, the giant would dislike them, and turn them out to find their way home; but notwithstanding this, so greedy were they, that they ate as much as ever they could hold. The giantess, who fed them, comforted herself with thinking that they were not real boys and girls, but only little pigs pretending to be boys and girls.
 
"'Now tell me the truth,' cried the giant, bending his face down over them. They shook with terror, and every one hoped it was somebody else the giant liked best. 'Where is the little boy that ran into the hall just now? Whoever tells me a lie shall be instantly boiled.'
 
"'He's in the broom,' cried one dough-faced boy. 'He's in there, and a little girl with him.'
 
"'The naughty children,' cried the giant, 'to hide from me!' And he made a stride towards the broom.
 
"'Catch hold of the bristles, Bobby. Get right into a tuft, and hold on,' cried Tricksey-Wee, just in time.
 
"The giant caught up the broom, and seeing nothing under it, set it down again with a bang that threw them both on the floor. He then made two strides to the boys, caught the dough-faced one by the neck, took the lid off a great pot that was boiling on the fire, popped him in as if he had been a trussed chicken, put the lid on again, and saying, 'There boys! See what comes of lying!' asked no more questions; for, as he always kept his word, he was afraid he might have to do the same to them all; and he did not like boiled boys. He like to eat them crisp, as radishes, whether forked or not, ought to be eaten. He then sat down, and asked his wife if his supper was ready. She looked into the pot, and, throwing the boy out with the ladle, as if he had been a black-beetle that had tumbled in and had had the worst of it, answered that she thought it was. Whereupon he rose to help her; and, taking the pot from the fire, poured the whole contents, bubbling and splashing into a dish like a vat. Then they say down to supper. The children in the broom could not see what they had; but it seemed to agree with them; for the giant talked like thunder, and the giantess answered like the sea, and they grew chattier and chattier. At length the giant said:
 
"'I don't feel quite comfortable about that heart of mine.' And as he spoke, instead of laying his hand on his bosom, he waved it away towards the corner where the children were peeping from the broom-bristles, like frightened little mice.
 
"'Well, you know, my darling Thunderthump,' answered his wife, 'I always thought it ought to be nearer home. But you know best, of course.'
 
"'Ha! ha! You don't know where it is, wife. I moved it a month ago.'
 
"'What a man you are, Thunderthump! You trust any creature alive rather than your wife.'
 
"Here the giantess gave a sob which sounded exactly like a wave going flop into the mouth of a cave up to the roof.
 
"'Where have you got it now?' she resumed, checking her emotion.
 
"'Well, Doodlem, I don't mind telling you,' said the giant, soothingly. 'The great she-eagle has got it for a nest-egg. She sits on it night and day, and thinks she will bring the greatest eagle out of it that ever sharpened his beak on the rocks of Mount Skycrack. I can warrant no one else will touch it while she has got it. But she is rather capricious, and I confess I am not easy about it; for the least scratch of one of her claws would do for me at once. And she has claws.'"
 
* * * * *
 
"What funny things you do make up!" said a boy. "How could the giant's heart be in an eagle's nest, and the giant himself alive and well without it?"
 
"Whatever you may think of it, Master Fred, I assure you I did not make it up. If it ever was made up, no one can tell who did it; for it was written in the chronicles of Giantland long before one of us was born. It was quite common," said I, in an injured tone, "for a giant to put his heart out to nurse, because he did not like the trouble and responsibility of doing it himself. It was, I confess, a dangerous sort of thing to do.—But do you want any more of my story or not?"
 
"Oh! yes, please," cried Frederick, very heartily.
 
"Then don't you find any more fault with it, or I will stop."
 
Master Fred was straightway silent, and I went on.
 
* * * * *
 
"All this time Buffy-Bob and Tricksey-Wee were listening with long ears. They did not dispute about the giant's heart, and impossibility, and all that; for they were better educated than Master Fred, and knew all about it. 'Oh!' thought Tricksey-Wee, 'if I could but find the giant's cruel heart, wouldn't I give it a squeeze!'
 
"The giant and giantess went on talking for a long time. The giantess kept advising the giant to hide his heart somewhere in the house; but he seemed afraid of the advantage it would give her over him.
 
"'You could hide it at the bottom of the flour-barrel,' said she.
 
"'That would make me feel chokey,' answered he.
 
"'Well, in the coal-cellar, or in the dust-hole. That's the place! No one would think of looking for your heart in the dust-hole.'
 
"'Worse and worse!' cried the giant.
 
"'Well, the water-butt?' said she.
 
"'No, no; it would grow spongy there,' said he.
 
"'Well, what will you do with it?'
 
"'I will leave it a month longer where it is, and then I will give it to the Queen of the Kangaroos, and she will carry it in her pouch for me. It is best to change, you know, and then my enemies can't find it. But, dear Doodlem, it's a fretting care to have a heart of one's own to look after. The responsibility is too much for me. If it were not for a bite of a radish now and then, I never could bear it.'
 
"Here the giant looked lovingly towards the row of little boys by the fire, all of whom were nodding, or asleep on the floor.
 
"'Why don't you trust it to me, dear Thunderthump?' said his wife. 'I would take the best possible care of it.'
 
"'I don't doubt it, my love. But the responsibility would be too much for you. You would no longer be my darling, light-hearted, airy, laughing Doodlem. It would transform you into a heavy, oppressed woman, weary of life—as I am.'
 
"The giant closed his eyes and pretended to go to sleep. His wife got his stockings, and went on with her darning. Soon, the giant's pretence became reality, and the giantess began to nod over her work.
 
"'Now, Buffy,' whispered Tricksey-Wee, 'now's our time. I think it's moonlight, and we had better be off. There's a door with a hole for the cat just behind us.'
 
"'All right!' said Bob; 'I'm ready.'
 
"So they got out of the broom-brake, and crept to the door. But, to their great disappointment, when they got through it, they found themselves in a sort of shed. It was full of tubs and things, and, though it was built of wood only, they could not find a crack.
 
"'Let us try this hole,' said Tricksey; for the giant and giantess were sleeping behind them, and they dared not go back.
 
"'All right,' said Bob. He seldom said anything else than All right.
 
"Now this hole was in a mound that came in through the wall of the shed and went along the floor for some distance. They crawled into it, and found it very dark. But groping their way along, they soon came to a small crack, through which they saw grass, pale in the moonshine. As they crept on, they found the hole began to get wider and lead upwards.
 
"'What is that noise of rushing?' said Buffy-Bob.
 
"'I can't tell,' replied Tricksey; 'for, you see, I don't know what we are in.'
 
"The fact was, they were creeping along a channel in the heart of a giant tree; and the noise they heard was the noise of the sap rushing along in its wooden pipes. When they laid their ears to the wall, they heard it gurgling along with a pleasant noise.
 
"'It sounds kind and good,' said Tricksey. 'I............