e my arm; there--so; safe at the bottom! Let us go forward upon the
platform of the cottage over the Falls. No bench? Well, sit upon my
cloak.'

'No, I won't.'

'You must. There; be _pleased_ to sit and rest. What a gorgeous display of
frost-work and flashing light on fantastic forms of ice! How the spray
rises and waves and changes its hues in the sun! And the trees, how
delicately each sprig of the evergreens is covered with a dress so white
and shining 'as no fuller on earth could whiten them.''

'Even so, Sear Leaf; And I love to think that the same one who wove the
glorious dress to which you refer, to gladden Peter, made this dazzling
drapery, and gave us eyes to look upon it. It recalls to my mind the song
of the Seraphim: 'The whole earth is full of thy glory!''

'Did they not, Lady, sing of a moral glory?'

'No; decidedly no. There was no moral glory in the earth when they sang
that song. Even the chosen people of GOD are then and there denounced as
having abandoned Him. No; it was the glory of the works of His hands, such
as we look upon this day, which elicited their praise.'

'I believe your exegesis is right. The scene is glorious. Summer in all
her loveliness has no dress like this. She has no hues equal to the play
of colors on these walls and columns of ice, extending far as the eye can
reach down the ravine, and towering in more than colossal grandeur. The
water is in treble volume, and force and voice; and as it rolls its white
folds of spotless foam down the valley, it reminds one of the great white
throne of the Revelations, and this wavy foam the folds of the robe that
filled the temple.'

'It is inexpressibly, oppressively beautiful, Sear Leaf!'

'Speaking of Revelation, how accurate is the description in Manfred of
this scene!'

'Let me hear it:'

'It is not noon; the sun-bow's rays still arch
The torrent with the many hues of heaven,
And roll the sheeted silver's waving column
O'er the crags headlong perpendicular,
And fling its lines of foaming light along
And to and fro, like the pale courser's tail,
The giant steed to be bestrode by Death,
As told in the apocalypse.'

'Well, Madam, why are you silent? Shall we go?'

'No. I could stay here till nightfall. I was thinking of the lines
succeeding those you have repeated:

----'No eyes
But mine now drink the sight of loveliness,''

'Am I nobody?'

'We are alone here. How many of the ligh