he earth from their view. The sun, meantime, was shining with
what seemed to them greatly increased splendor in this super-cloud
region.

"Well, girls," cried the Doctor, "I am for some exercise. Who will mount
with me to the observatory?"

They each assented, and a few moments later were sitting in that
elevated place, very warm and breathless from the unwonted exercise of
the long climb. This was Mattie's first visit to the observatory, and
her eyes dilated with terror as she looked over the rolling sides of the
massive globe.

"O, Doctor, Doctor! isn't this perfectly awful! Think of what the very
slightest mistake or mishap would do. We should go flying down through
those clouds, and be dashed to pieces in those uninhabited Canadian
forests. And I suppose that our friends would never hear of us again.

"Tut, tut, Mattie. Cheer up, little girl," said the doctor, very
soothingly, and patting her head with his steady, strong hand. "No
mishap is possible. We cannot explode, collapse, burn, collide, nor
capsize. No enterprise ever entered upon by man possessed so much of
interest and importance, and was attended by so little of the element of
danger. You were never safer in your life than you are at this moment.
Think of it! Here we are above the clouds, the world with all its care
and heartaches shut out, basking in this glorious sunlight, sailing on
in this clear, bracing, microbeless atmosphere. The clouds beneath our
feet, the sun above our heads, and God's empyrean all about us. What can
be more inspiring and grand? How does the chorus of that old hymn run?

'Let us look above the clouds,
Above the clouds, above the clouds;
Up above the stormy clouds
To fairer worlds on high.'"

The Doctor sang this simple chorus in his great sonorous voice that rang
out over the clouds like a bugle blast.

"Well, I declare Doctor, you will not let me get into a real good
fright," cried Mattie, smiling through eyes filled with tears.

"No, indeed, I will not, Mattie. The only fear I have now is that we may
keep breakfast waiting. Let's descend."

The forenoon passed away very uneventfully. About the middle of the
afternoon they were treated to a splendid spectacle. A terrific thunder
storm raged beneath them; and as they looked below into the inky depths
of the thunder clouds, pierced and riven by jagged lightnings, followed
by deafening bellowings and crashings of thunder, and then cast their
eyes up to t