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

to pieces. I shall break up very soon, even without your help, and if you hold on to me I shall be scattered all the sooner. However, if you like to take the risk of clinging to me you may. I have no objection to steer my course right towards the moon for your accommodation; only I cannot answer for what may happen to you if I should chance to split up before we reach your destination."

"All right!" said Leo; "I can't be worse off than I am." And away they went sailing across the sky.

Leo was nestled in the folds of the cloudman's cloak, and he held on as fast as he was able with both his little fists. It was very hard work, for the cloudman was melting and shifting every moment, and pieces of him were coming off continually in Leo's hands. According as they broke away, Leo grasped at other parts of him, but he did not find it at all a comfortable voyage, and peeped out very anxiously now and again to see if they were coming near the moon, Still his fears did not prevent him from longing for a little news about the cloudman's manner of life.

"Will you kindly tell me a little about yourself," he said, "and where you are going, and where you had been before I met you ?"

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"A few minutes ago I was fast asleep on the edge of the sky," said the cloudman. One must have a little rest sometimes. I am going now a long way off to meet the sun who will be arriving by-andby and must be properly attended.”

"But if you go to pieces so fast," said Leo, "what will there be left of you at the end of so long a journey? I wonder why you don't try to hold yourself together."

The cloudman laughed a hollow sort of laugh, and a large piece of his mantle broke off and floated away in the shape of a bird,

"Heavy creatures like you," he said, "must of course be stupid. Can't you understand that I can gather myself up again as fast as I go to pieces? Only it is my nature to keep changing my shape. After I have taken the form of a man for awhile, I must dissolve away into a thousand little pieces. When it is time for me to assume the form of anything large again, the bits all come together. Sometimes I am an elephant, sometimes a dog, often a flock of birds, and it has also been said that I looked very like a whale.”

"I have heard of that certainly," said Leo.

At this moment a slight film came between them and the moon. Leo looked up quickly and saw the figure of a beautiful woman hanging in the air close by, with one hand extended, as if to say "hush!" while she gazed down watchfully towards the earth. The moon shone on her face, which was very lovely, and on the dark veil which was drawn over her head and covered her brows. Her garments were dark and gauze-like, and were folded closely round her figure. A little animal was carried under one arm, and its nose peeped forth at Leo, who could not make out whether it was a mouse or a squirrel. She looked so beautiful and peaceful that Leo gazed at her in delight.

“Who is she?" asked Leo of the cloudman.

"She? Why she is an hour, to be sure!" said the cloudman. "An hour!" repeated Leo, amazed.

"Yes, she is the Third Hour of the night," said the cloudman. "Well, that is wonderful!" said Leo. "I always knew there were hours, you know, twelve in the day and twelve in the night, but I never knew that they were flying about in the sky like this so that a person could see them."

"There is many a thing you don't know," said the cloudman.

"Tell me some more,' ," said Leo. "What is she doing there? She looks as if she was watching something."

"So she is," said the cloudman. "She is watching the flight of Time and keeping note of him."

"Oh!" cried Leo, "how extraordinary! And can she see Time really-and what is he like ?"

"I can't tell you what he is like," said the cloudman. "I never saw him and neither can you, but it's different with her. She keeps her eye on him, and that's what she's there for. If she lost sight of him for a moment, the whole world could not catch him again. And then there would be confusion for you."

"Does she stay there for ever ?" asked Leo, looking back at her admiringly as they floated far away and left her.

"Only for as long as herself," answered the cloudman. "Did I not tell you she was an hour? When she is worn out, she will begin to fade, and if you were beside her then you would see her vanish like a light that is blown out. And then there is another one in her place. Perhaps you may meet the fourth hour. But, hallo! you had better look out for yourself, for I am going to pieces!"

Indeed the cloudman had been breaking up rapidly during the last few minutes. Pieces of him, large and small, had floated off every second in the shape of little animals, shells, flowers, and wisps of hay; and now he suddenly split up the back, and one part of him turned into the bough of a tree, while the other became a churchsteeple, and both glided away. Nothing was left stationary but his arm, which had grown wonderfully large, and now changed into a little boat with a silver prow. Leo had just time to jump from the branch into the boat before it also began to float away quite in the opposite direction from the moon.

“Well, well!" said Leo, "I am in for adventures, it seems, so I may as well make the best of it. If I don't get to the moon, I suppose I shall come to some other place. If the boat will only hold me in till I reach something else!"

Away scudded the boat as if a puff of wind had impelled it; when to Leo's horror he found the bottom give way, and his two legs went right through and hung downwards in the air. He now expected nothing but to tumble down through the air and got dizzy at the thought, when suddenly he saw right before him a figure which he guessed at once to be the fourth hour of the night. She was even a more beautiful creature than the other, her dress was lighter and more silvery, her veil was thrown back, and her hair was rippling like gold over her shoulders in the moonlight. Her gaze was not so fixed, her face was more smiling than that of the other hour he had seen; and she carried an eagle with folded wings on one of her snow-white arms.

Leo had just time to spring towards her and lay hold of one of her shining white feet before the last fragment of his boat melted to powder and drifted away like a shower of sleet across the sky.

"Oh, save me, dear lady !" cried Leo, delighted to find that she kept quite steady and was not dragged down by his weight. "Save me, and I will bless the hour!" Leo had often heard people blessing the hour when things happened to them, and he kept on saying, "I will bless the hour-I will bless THE HOUR!"

"What is this that is dragging at me ?" said the Hour, in a silvery voice. "It must be either grief or idleness or guilt, for only one of these three could make an Hour so intolerably heavy."

"I hope she won't kick me off," cried Leo. "O madam! I am neither grief nor idleness nor guilt, I assure you. Oh, do take pity on me and leave me on a lump of cloud somewhere, if not on the moon; or else I shall tumble down on the earth and be killed."

"Do I know you at all ?" asked the Hour. "Oh, I can see a face looking up at me now! Are you not one of those little cherubs that are in pictures? I think I knew you in the gallery where I am hanging on the wall the best part of my time."

"No," said Leo, humbly, "I am not a cherub, though I have seen the ones you mean leaning over the edge of a cloud. I wish indeed I were one of them, for they have got only heads and wings, and can live in the skies. It is my great heavy body and my arms and legs that weigh me down. I am sorry to say you don't know me at all, for I am always asleep in my crib at this hour of the night-I beg your pardon, madam-I mean while you are flying about this way watching

the time."

"It is very odd," said the Hour. "I never knew the like of it before; but then I only live the length of myself once in every journey that the sun makes round the world; so my experience of things in general is not very great. Get on my eagle's back, little face, and he carry you so far as the Dawn, where you will be sure to find some pretty solid clouds for a while."

will

The eagle at once dropped from her arm and Leo found himself astride on its back in a twinkling.

"Make haste to return," cried the Hour to the eagle, "for my time is nearly up."

And off flew the eagle with Leo on its back, far away from the moon, which had grown very dim by this time and had somehow fallen quite down to one side of the sky.