but when it came to be Leo's turn, he looked in at the door in dismay, and cried:

"Oh, please, don't ask me to go in. You don't know how difficult it would be to me. Besides, I am so hard I should break down the house. I shall just sit on the doorstep here and you can hand something out to me."

"That will not do at all," said the cloud children from within. "Come in! come in! and never mind about the house. What is the good of a house unless you can break it as often as you please?".

After this invitation Leo did not hesitate any longer. He put his foot on the threshold and walked boldly forward, carrying away the whole upper wall of the house on his head. He went into a parlour where all the cloud children were sitting at a long table, with their heads in the upper storey, the ceiling being pushed out of the way for the time. When Leo sat down, his head stayed upstairs like the others, and by-and-by the fragments that remained of the ceiling retreated up to the roof and allowed the children to see each other. The eatables on the table were of course made of cloud, and they melted down the children's throats as fast as they were raised to their lips. Leo found them very unsatisfying indeed, for he never felt as if he had got a mouthful of anything. He was very glad when the breakfast was over and the children proposed to take him all over the house. Then they went running about pushing aside cloud walls and rolling away cloud staircases, which seemed to be the only way they had of going over the house. They broke it all to pieces and trod on it, and then they floated off laughing and left the house to build itself up again as soon as it pleased.

The children next danced into the garden, and began to play a most curious game with the flowers, changing themselves into rosebushes and clumps of lilies, and then back again into children. “This is the way we amuse ourselves," said the little cloud girl, "and you may look on at us as you don't know how to melt. How awfully stupid it must be to be always the same thing !"

While Leo was watching them, he also saw people of all kinds going up and down the street, old people and young people in every kind of strange dress, and they had all the same rolling or floating manner of walking, and he noticed that when two met full in the face they did not step aside and pass as other people would do, but they rolled right into one another and sometimes they never got disentangled again. A man and a woman would stumble against each other, melt into one another, and become an elephant or a camel; then the camel or the elephant would roll on, and without going much further would swallow a few men, and perhaps before he got to the end of the street he would meet a waggon, which would tumble through him and break him up into a couple of asses, or dogs, or a flock of pigeons.

It happened that, just as Leo stared at all these things, a lumbering cloud-waggon came rolling along, and the mischief-loving cloudchildren hustled Leo into it, drawing the cloud-curtains round him, and shoving the waggon on its way. Leo was quite in the dark now,

and could not see anything, only felt himself tumbling about in soft, fluffy darkness, while the silvery laughter of the summer cloud-children rang like musical bells in his ears.

By-and-by the laughter ceased, and Leo saw and heard nothing more. He was floating, floating away somewhere, till his head became dizzy; and then, all at once, the wrappings parted from around him, and he perceived that the children, and the village, and the fields and gardens, had all completely disappeared.

He was sitting on a desert island of cloud, all alone.

CHAPTER VII.

BAD-WEATHER COUNTRY.

THE sky looked cold and gray all around him, the sun had disappeared, the beautiful golden islands were gone, and in their place were large, dark tracts of cloud, like deserts and wildernesses. Leo had scarcely time to feel vexed at this change when he felt a sudden blow on his back, and was lifted up by a squall of wind and spun across the sky, as if he had been a flash of lightning. He was flung with far greater violence than when he had been carried on the Moment's back or shot from the censer. He was dashed not only across the sky, but through and through the clouds at the other side of the horizon, so far that he made a great hole, which seemed a mile deep; and when he, at last, ceased moving, he found himself struggling to swim in a great sea, where everything was dark round the shores.

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Well, well!" thought Leo, "it seems the weather has changed. Now I am going to see where the rain and the storm come from! That blow the wind gave me was pretty well as a beginning. A sturdy chap he must be, wherever he has puffed to. I wish he had spoken to me!"

His eyes began to get accustomed to this new region, and after a time he perceived that the shores were not all blank, dark mounds, as he at first supposed, but were covered with groups of people who were coming and going, plunging into the water, and hurrying over the verge of the distant hills. Leo made great efforts to reach the shores, as the water felt cold, and he was anxious to know what these people could be about.

When he touched the shore he found that it was hard as iron and icy cold; it seemed to be altogether a mass of ice. The people were men with large beards hanging with icicles, and women wrapped in long dark cloaks and streaming veils, and they were busy making up large balls of ice and snow and flinging them down into the dark lake where they melted away and disappeared immediately. Dark, heavy-looking children were also engaged in the same employment, and sometimes they quarrelled and pelted each other with the balls of ice. Leo made his way to where they were, and sat down among

them, and asked them questions about who they might be, and what they were doing.

"This is Bad-Weather Country," they said.

"We are the children of the bad weather, and we are sending rains and floods and torrents down upon the earth.”

"Oh, are you, indeed ?" said Leo. "So I may thank you for the dreadful wet days, when one can only sit staring out of the nurserywindow, and must not dare to take a step out of doors."

"Just so," said the children.

'Oh, I say !" shouted Leo, "stop that fellow over there! Hallo!" "What do you mean ?" said the children.

Leo.

'Why there's a fellow tumbled into the lake after his ball," cried Oh, I declare, he's vanished! He's drowned!"

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The children laughed, a pattering, chilly kind of laugh, that sounded like rain falling on window panes.

“Oh, you stupid!" they said. "Don't you know that is part of his business."

"No, I don't," said Leo. "Nobody has any business to drown himself, I know."

The children laughed still more loudly.

"We don't know any

thing about drowning here," they said. "It is only on earth that such silly things happen."

"Then what has become of the chap ?" asked Leo.

"Oh, he's only gone down below to superintend some of the works," said the children.

"Indeed!" said Leo.

"Yes, to be sure."

"And will he ever come back ?"

"Of course he will come back. Why, you are the most ignorant

creature we ever came across.

"Don't be so hard upon a fellow!" said Leo. "I am a stranger here, you know. I came up from the earth."

“Oh, that accounts for it. Well, do you see those people over there in the distance who are constantly coming over the hills and scattering themselves on the shores? Those are some of our folks who have gone down through the lake, and have come up again with their business done. Do you see them ?”

Leo looked, and as his eyes had got accustomed to the foggy twilight of the place he saw distinctly all that was going on around him. The people on the shores-men, women, and children-were continually flinging themselves into the lake, and disappearing, and at the same time figures as if made of mist were constantly arriving over hills of mist away behind in the clouds, and coming down to the shores, becoming more solid every moment, till they at last appeared just the same as the others who were at work.

"And are those really the same chaps who plunged into the lake ?" asked Leo; "and where have they been, and what have they been doing? Oh, but I'm sure you are joking. I really can't believe it, you know!"

"We will show you whether we are joking or not," said the chil

dren. "Half a dozen of us will go down through the lake this very moment, and you wait here till we come back. Then we will tell you what we have been doing."

"Very well," said Leo. "That will be capital."

"I shall take a snow-storm with me," said one of the children. "And I, a flood," said another.

"And I shall bring frost to nip the fruit blossoms," said a third. "Oh, dear," said Leo, can you do nothing but mischief?" "We intend to bring gentle rains and dew," said the other three children, “and we will tell you what we do with them as soon as we come back."

As they spoke, all six of them rolled into the gloomy lake, and they kissed hands to Leo, just as the waters closed over their heads. Leo gazed after them as long as a vestige of them was to be seen, and then he sat down, quite still, in profound astonishment.

"To think of all these things going on up here," reflected he, "and how little about anything we know down there in that foolish world of ours! It ought to be put in the Geography, it ought! I'll ask papa to write to the newspapers about it, as soon as I go home."

Leo sat waiting in anxious expectation of the return of his clever little friends. He took care not to quit the spot where they had left him, lest he might miss them in the crowd and never be able to find them again. He amused himself, meanwhile, by watching the movements of the other people round him, and the time passed so quickly that it seemed only a few minutes till he saw them coming racing towards him over the hills of mist, themselves all softened into mist, and melting and rolling about in the strangest manner possible.

"Why, you don't mean to say you have been down on the earth, since ?" said Leo.

"Haven't we, indeed ?" cried the children. "We think we have, rather!"

"Well, there is one thing," said Leo, "you cannot have been doing much, either good or bad, while you were away, after all your boasting, for you have not had time.”

Oh, didn't we, though? And why shouldn't we have time in the course of a year

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A year!" cried Leo. "Why you are only gone from here about a quarter of an hour."

A wild chorus of their own peculiar pattering laughter broke from the rain-children, and they rolled about and spread themselves over everything, so dreadfully like mere fragments of mist that Leo became quite nervous lest they should never be able to pick themselves up and gather themselves together again. However, his mind was soon relieved in this respect, for they presently not only settled themselves into proper shape, but hardened themselves gradually into ice. Then they all sat round him to tell their adventures.

OUR RECEPTION AT PORT ELIZABETH AND GRAHAMS

TOWN.

BY A MISSIONARY.

TE left Dartmouth on Thursday, September 23, 1875, on board.

WE the Edinburgh Castle. Touching at Madeira, where we availed

ourselves of the few hours' stay to visit the cathedral and other places of interest, we again proceeded on our way; and after a pleasant and prosperous voyage, we at last arrived at Cape Town about three o'clock on Sunday evening, October 17. Here we were met by his lordship, Dr. Leonard, and his clergy. The Bishop conducted us to his own residence where a sumptuous dinner had been provided. We remained at Cape Town until the following Thursday the guests of Dr. Leonard, who entertained us with that warm-hearted hospitality which is characteristic of the Irish nation. We visited the convent adjoining the Bishop's house, where the children gave a very pleasing little entertainment in honour of Dr. Ricards and those whom he had brought with him from Europe. We also visited the good nuns at Springfield, in the Wynberg district, where there is a flourishing convent and boarding school; and we found time likewise to inspect the Observatory, the Museum, and the Botanic Gardens, of which Cape Town is justly proud. Nor did we forget to call upon the good Marist Brothers, who, besides having the care of the parish schools, have also an excellent Academy with ninety-eight pupils.

On Thursday evening the Edinburgh Castle set sail for Port Elizabeth; and after a rapid and delightful passage we arrived in Algoa Bay at about eight o'clock on the morning of Saturday, October 23. At Cape Town we had heard some faint rumours of the preparations which were being made at Port Elizabeth for the reception of Dr. Ricards and his companions; but the event far surpassed all expectation. As soon as the steamer was signalled from the lighthouse, the bell of St. Augustine's Church announced the fact to the hundreds that were expecting her; and immediately a deputation of clergy and laity proceeded to the steamer. As soon as they came on board, they warmly welcomed his lordship and the priests and nuns whom he had brought with him. Meanwhile the members of St. Patrick's Society assembled in St. Augustine's Hall, and, having donned their green and white sashes, marched down to the jetty, ready to meet his lordship as soon as he set foot on shore. They were indeed a splendid sight, those fine stalwart Irishmen, their faces beaming with sincere and enthusiastic joy at again seeing him who truly reigns as a father among his devoted and loving children. As soon as the anchor-boat

*Our readers will recognise one of the three names recently submitted to the Holy See by the clergy of Ferns as worthy to fill the void left by the death of their saintly Bishop, Dr. Furlong. This mention of Ferns accounts for the appearance of St. Aidan at Grahamstown later on.