"Yes," answered Mr. Percy. "Rousseau says that in Switzerland 'nature unites all seasons in one instant, all climates in one spot.'

"Very true."

"Father," said Minnie.

"What is it, child?"

"I want to know one thing."

"Two things you shall know if I can tell you."

"Only one at a time."

"What is that?"

"What is the dreadful swelling I see on the necks of the people here?' "It is called the 'goitre.' "What is the cause of it?"

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"The cause is not known fully."

"What is supposed to be the cause?"

"Some attribute it to the use of snow water." "Is it never found when snow water is not drank."

"Yes."

"Then it cannot be that."

"There are also many cretins found here." "What are 6 cretins'?"

"Idiots."

"Are they numerous."

"Yes, Walter met seventeen in passing through one village."

"What produces cretins?"

"That is as much unknown as the cause of

"I have seen these goitres in America and in England."

"What part of England do you find them in ?” "They are found in Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and in other parts of England, in limestone districts mostly."

"Is it called goitre in England and America?" "I have never heard any name given to it in our country, but in England it is called the 'Derbyshire neck.'"

"Does the same cause produce the goitre and idiocy both?"

"What do scientific men say about it?" "I remember what Coxe says."

"What?"

"He says, 'The same causes which generate goitres probably operate in the case of idiots; for wherever goitres prevail to a considerable degree, idiots invariably abound; such is the nice and inexplicable connection between our bodies and our minds, that the one ever sympathizes with the other; and it is by no means an illgrounded conjecture, that the same causes which

affect the body should also affect the mind; or, in other words, that the waters which created obstructions and goitres should also occasion mental imbecility. Although these idiots are frequently the children of goitrous parents, and have usually those swellings themselves, yet they are sometimes the offspring even of healthy parents, whose other children are properly organized, and are themselves free from guttural excrescences. I observed several children, scarcely ten years old, with very large goitres.

These tumors, when they increase to a considerable magnitude, check perspiration, and render those who are afflicted with them exceedingly indolent and languid.""

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"O, dear me! I should not want to live here." "Ah, you change your tune," said Walter; "yesterday you were wishing you could live in this country all your days."

"But how should I look with a goitre on my neck?"

"It would not improve your beauty-your looks, I mean. As to beauty, you cannot boast of

"There, take that, bub, for your impudence; cried the child, snapping her brother on the ear. "Just as I mean, Min."

"Well, Master Walter, if you wish to banter,

let me ask how you would appear if you were a cretin."

"I don't know."

"Never mind, children," said Mr. Percy; "thank the wise and good Father that you have neither of these dreadful maladies; that the goitre does not abound where you live, and that idiocy has not afflicted either of you."

Then Mr. Percy endeavored to impress on the minds of his young charge the obligations to gratitude under which they were placed, in consequence of having been endowed with reason, intelligence, health, and having received their existence in a land where there are so many blessings lavished alike on rich and poor. Amid those sublime exhibitions of nature it was easy for Mr. Percy to turn the thoughts of his children up to God, and from the wonderful creation itself they were directed to the infinite, unseen Creator, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever, whose existence has no past, no future, but is ever present; whose name is I AM.

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CHAPTER IV.

TAKING A BATH AT LEUK.

"LEUK?" queried Walter to himself, as he

heard his father say they should stop at

Leuk. "What is there, I wonder?"

"Father," he added, "why do you stop at Leuk?"

"To take a bath, my son."

"A bath?"

"Yes."

"I should not think you would stop for that. We have had bathing enough all through these mountainous regions."

"It is not merely for a bath that we stop." "What is it then?"

"There are some singular things about the bath that we wish to stop for."

"Then the baths of Leuk have medicinal qualities."

"Yes, they are said to have."

"I shall be glad to stop if there is any thing to see."

"You will find enough to amuse you at