hand, gazing over the country at the trees which so puzzled his fancy. Nurse was at her tea, so he was not disturbed, and twilight began to descend on the landscape. He looked so intently for a long time. that the seven ashes began to dance before him. But he rubbed his eyes, and there they stood quite still "with all their hair on end," as he said to himself; as still as if they had never moved in their lives.

Nevertheless, Leo felt now more sure than ever that they set off every night for a long walk out over the world, and came back before people were up in the morning. They looked exactly like a file of soldiers. "One, two-one, two!" said Leo, shuffling his feet. "Oh, they won't move while I am looking. How I wish I could sit up a whole night, and then I should catch them!"

Soon after this he had to go to bed, and fell sound asleep thinking about the trees. In the middle of the night he awoke and could not go asleep again, but lay wondering whether the ash-trees were now gone off on a journey, or whether they were still standing on the upland "with their hair on end." The moonlight was shining faintly in the room, and all his little brothers were fast asleep in their cribs round the wall. Leo sat up and looked about him. From the window of the day-nursery he knew he could see all he wished to see. Could he venture out of his bed and creep in there without disturbing nurse or any of the children? All the doors were open, and he had often heard nurse declare that she slept so light the squeak of a mouse would waken her." And the boards in the floor might squeak like a mouse. Well, let her waken and he would tell her all about it. He was not going to do any harm.

The worst she could do would be to go down to papa's study in the morning, and tell him that Master Leo was going mad about the seven trees on the hill, and that they had better be cut down before the boy grew up an idiot. Nurse was such an old nurse in the house and so good when anybody was sick, that Leo knew she could say what she liked. And then his papa would talk to him. That would be no trouble, at all events; he loved his papa and was not afraid of him. "So here goes!" said Leo, and the little bare feet went pattering across the bed-room floor, and the boards did not squeak, and Leo found himself at the nursery window, his face pressed to the pane, and his heart beating so hard that he could scarcely breathe.

The world outside looked very dim, for the moonshine was not strong enough to light it up. Leo rubbed the pane and made it clear and looked very hard at the ridge against the horizon. The hill was as bare as the palm of the little boy's hand. The trees were gone!

Leo drew a long breath, and rubbed his eyes, and looked again. He gazed around at the other parts of the landscape, but trees and bushes were all in their places; all were there to be seen-except the seven ash-trees on the upland, which were gone.

"Aha!" said Leo, "I have caught them!" and he felt very much astonished although he had expected to see just what he had seen: a bare hill and no trees, the trees being away, as he had known, on their midnight ramble. He sat waiting a long time hoping to see them coming back; but at last he got very cold and sleepy, and was glad

to creep into his bed.

Of one thing, however, he was sure after this,

that the trees did walk every night.

He said nothing to anyone about this strange discovery, for little boys do not like to be laughed at.

CHAPTER II.

HE GOES OFF WITH THE TREES.

AFTER this Leo thought more and more about the seven strange ashtrees, and he never ceased wondering about where they went and what they saw on their way when they were off on their midnight excursions over the world. At last one night he could not go asleep at all for thinking, and, growing quite wild with curiosity, he got up and dressed himself, crept down-stairs, unlocked the great hall-door, though he did not reach much above the handle, and stepped out, closing it softly behind him. He was so excited at the time that he did not know he was doing a naughty thing. He meant no harm, and thought he would come back very soon after he had seen how the trees would get themselves up out of the ground, and had watched them start on their march, and observed where they went to. He flew over the lawns and up and down the smooth green slopes, climbed a ditch or two, and soon arrived panting at the foot of the hill whereon stood the curious trees.

There they were, looking more lively and intelligent than ever. They had not stirred as yet, and it was now about midnight. Leo sat down and watched them a little while, then got impatient and approached a yard or two nearer, stealing gradually up and up the hill, never taking his eyes for a moment off the seven mysterious trunks with their fantastic foliage and arms tossed this way and that way over their heads. After a time he got tired of waiting and went boldly up to the stoutest tree of the seven, which stood in the middle of the row, clasped his arms round the trunk, and laid his little cheek against the bark. He did not know exactly how he ought to speak to a tree, but he wanted to explain that he desired it to be friendly and allow him to see it set out for its nightly walk. Then he began to examine the tree and found that right above his head there was a nice roomy seat among the branches. Without stopping to think he put his foot on a twig and sprang up into this nest; and there he sat as comfortable as could be, with his back against the trunk and his arm round a stout bough at either side.

What was to happen next? He did not know, but was sure something strange was going to happen. He saw his father's house nodding good-bye at him from the distant hollow; the stars began to wink at him, and suddenly the moon rolled out from behind the chimneys with a most curious grin, such as he had never seen before, upon her face. "Something is coming!" thought little Leo, and he prepared for a shock. Suddenly he heard a peculiar sound which

made him think at first that a great wind had begun to blow; but that could not be as the leaves on the tree he sat in had not stirred. He peered backward to where the sound came from and then he saw that the first tree of the row of ashes was swaying about in the air, leaning to this side and that, and dragging its roots a little more and a little more out of the earth at each bend of its trunk. "Hallo!” cried Leo, in great delight, "here it comes! We are going to start!" and he leaned forward and watched eagerly as one after another the seven trees uprooted themselves out of the ground and stood with their roots spread upon the hill just like the claws of gigantic crabs. He felt a very odd sensation when his own tree began to perform in this way, but he held on bravely and was rewarded for his courage when he found himself carried slowly down-hill in the arms of the ash, which closed round him in the most friendly manner. "Hold on, little man!" said a burly voice, that sounded like a puff of wind, and off set the seven ash-trees, marching stoutly in single file across the country.

There was a nice opening in the branches just before Leo, so that he could see beautifully out over the world as he was carried along. The moon was so bright that he could see the rivers flowing and the houses sleeping and the fields all smiling under their load of growing grain. The walking trees kept out in the open plains as they marched along, for when moving among other trees they were apt to get their branches entangled and torn about, which was, doubtless, the reason why "their hair always stood on end," as Leo had described it to himself. A little of this annoyance they could not avoid, but they kept generally as much as possible on the edges of the forests. When they met with a river running right across their path, they stepped boldly into it and waded to the opposite bank. They crossed several mountains and passed by numerous towns in the space of half an hour, for they marched as swiftly as any giant in his boots of seven leagues. At last they came to the shores of the sea, and Leo was rather astonished to find that they were going to walk on the ocean. Into it they plunged, however, and floundered along through the waves, passing ships which hailed them through a speaking trumpet. the trees floated on darkly in the distance without answering the greeting; and Leo was sure the people in the ships must take them for a phantom fleet such as nurse had once told him about, which had been seen by her son, who was a sailor. The trees also passed quite close by the lighthouses, not being like vessels afraid of the rocks, and they very good-naturedly stopped to let Leo look in at the lighthouse windows. A lighthouse was a thing about which Leo had often been very curious, and now, while his ash-tree stood on tip-toes on the ledge of a rock, the little boy put his face to the pane of the chamber of glass and observed all its arrangements to his fullest satisfaction. He saw first the green and then the red light turn round and glare out over the wide black desert of the sea, making the cruel foam glitter round the edges of the fatal rocks. He saw a woman sitting solitary in this lonely chamber of the air, dozing asleep with her head on her hands. Suddenly she started up and listened. No, it was a

But

calm night; there were no wrecks out there on the ocean; but she caught sight of Leo's little pale face looking in at the window and threw up her hands with a shriek. Leo was sorry for this, for he did not like to frighten her, and he tapped at the window in a friendly manner and called to her through the glass that he was only Leo. She did not understand him, however, but screamed more than ever, and fled out of the lighthouse chamber. "We had better move on, I think," said Leo, to the tree, "though I am very sorry, for I should have been glad if she had invited me in. I should not wonder at all if she took me for the ghost of some poor little drowned boy."

"I dare say she did," said the tree, who had by this time become quite conversable; "but, if you like, we can call and apologise to her when we are coming back again."

And on they went.

CHAPTER III.

LEO ENTERS THE CLOUDS.

THEY SOON reached the opposite shores of the sea and walked on and on over a beautiful mountainous country which Leo had never seen before. "You are a daring little fellow," said the ash-tree, to Leo; "and I am going to show you some things which will be new to you." By this time they had reached the top of a very high mountain, so high that the clouds were quite next door to them.

"We have now come to the end of our journey for to-night," said the ash-tree and the seven trees stood still on the mountain ridge in a row and stretched themselves, tossing about their branches and rubbing their little twigs against the sky. "We must stay here and rest awhile and enjoy this air which is good for our health. In the meantime you, if you like, can climb my upper branches and get into the clouds. I should like to go too, but I find myself rather clumsy. If you are not very long we will wait till you come back."

Leo was glad to obey, for he certainly had never been in the sky in his life, though he had often wondered to himself at the nursery window whether people on the tops of high mountains could not clamber up into the clouds and go where they pleased. Now he had discovered that this might be done, at least with the help of a walking ash-tree. Right above his head there was a beautiful heap of white fleecy clouds, one rolled over another like piles of snow, and with the moonlight shining faintly on them, showing their hills and hollows, and the places where a traveller ought to put his feet. Leo climbed to the topmost branch of the tree and made a spring.

Oh! it was like jumping into an open bed of eider-down, and Leo floundered about for several minutes up to his eyes in the soft melting fleece that swelled about him and rolled over him and parted again, letting him look about him. It was some time before he could make an attempt to get on his feet, but after great struggling he found that

he could wade knee deep in the clouds; and even this was something. He noticed that every spot that was a little darker than the rest, as if with shadow, was also a little harder, so that he could step from one of these spots to the other, and so make his way with great difficulty right up to the top of the great white bank on the edge of the sky.

Here he sat and rested himself, with his legs dangling over the clear part of the sky, which was like a beautiful dark lake with the moon an island of silver in the middle of it. "This is very jolly!" thought Leo. "Now if I could only go on an excursion over to the moon and see what it is made of. It would be the finest fun in the world to walk about in such a beautiful silver place."

This seemed likely to be a very difficult matter, for though the sky had the appearance of a lake and Leo could swim, still he was not at all sure that the lake would prove to be of anything like water, or that he would be able to float himself in it as he could in the tide where he had bathed. He might either drop down towards the earth, or fall through somewhere on the other side, and he did not feel comfortable at the thought of doing either. As he was thinking over this and wondering what he could do he suddenly perceived that the clouds around him were breaking up and taking different shapes and beginning to separate and float about, as he had often watched them doing from the nursery window at home. He got quite frightened at seeing this, for if the clouds were all going to drift away from under him he foresaw that in a few more moments he would be struggling to shift for himself in the dangerous-looking lake. He looked about anxiously for something to hold on by, and was relieved in his mind when he saw one large lump of cloud taking gradually the shape of a man, very like the picture of the genii in the story of the " Fisherman and the Genii" on the shelf in the nursery bookcase. He had a long trailing cloak, very ragged and flimsy at the end and very much spread out, and he had one arm uplifted, and kept raising it a little higher and a little higher every moment, as if pointing to something in the distance. Leo was by this time in a panic, for the last morsel of the cloud bank was just drifting from under him and he flung himself on the skirts of the majestic figure, and cried out as well as he was able: "Oh! please, sir, will you take me with you wherever you are going ?"

"You are very heavy," said the figure, without turning its head. "It would be beneath my dignity to look round at you, so you must tell me what you are and why you want to come with me."

"I came up from the world," said Leo, still holding on, "and I am very anxious to get over quite close to the moon. If I could walk about on it for a little while I should go home quite satisfied. I am what is called 'a boy. You must have seen a good many of me if you ever looked down on the earth."

"I have no time for such idleness," said the cloudman, loftily, and he raised his arm a little higher than before, taking a still more sublime attitude. "The only thing I know about you is that you are heavy. I never stay long in one shape, and I am very easily dragged