ards Edith with tremulous interest. As she stood
leaning on her crutches, her garments fluttering in the breeze, I almost
expected to see her borne from us like down upon the wind, and floating
on the bosom of that mighty current.

I said I did not mean to attempt a description of scenes which have
baffled the genius and eloquence of man.

"Now I am content to die!" said an ancient traveller, when the colossal
shadow of the Egyptian pyramids first fell on his weary frame. But what
are those huge, unmoving monuments of man's ambition, compared to this
grandest of creation's mysteries, whose deep and thundering voice is
repeating, day after day and night after night,--"forever and ever," and
whose majestic motion, rushing onward, plunging downward, never pausing,
never resting, is emblematic of the sublime march of Deity, from
everlasting to everlasting,--from eternity to eternity?

Shall I ever forget the moment when I stood on Termination Rock, beyond
which no mortal foot has ever penetrated? I stood in a shroud of gray
mist, wrapping me on every side,--above, below, around. I shuddered, as
if the hollow, reverberating murmurs that filled my ears were the knell
of the departed sun. That cold, gray mist; it penetrated the depths of
my spirit; it drenched, drowned it, filled it with vague, ghost-like
images of dread and horror. I cast one glance behind, and saw a gleam of
heaven's sunny blue, one bright dazzling gleam flashing between the
rugged rock and the rushing waters. It was as if the veil of the temple
of nature were rent, and the glory of God shone through the fissure.

"Let us return," said I to Ernest. "I feel as if I had passed through
the valley of the shadow of death. Is it not sacrilegious to penetrate
so deeply into the mysteries of nature?"

"O Gabriella!" he exclaimed, his eyes flashing through the shrouding
mist like burning stars, "how I wish you felt with me! Were it possible
to build a home on this shelving rock, I would willingly dwell here
forever, surrounded by this veiling mist. With you thus clasped in my
arms, I could be happy, in darkness and clouds, in solitude and
dreariness, anywhere, everywhere,--with the conviction that you loved
me, and that you looked for happiness alone to me."

"As this moment," I answered, drawing more closely to him, "I fear as if
I would rather stay here and die, than return to the world and mingle in
its jarring elements. I would far rather, Ernest, make my wi