anite upreared
before her, and then turned slowly to look across and up the valley,
where other and yet grander mountain ramparts thrust their great
forbiddance on the reaching vision. She sat down, where she was, upon a
rock.

"You are very tired?" Frank Scherman said, inquiringly.

"See how they measure themselves against each other," Sin Saxon said,
for answer. "Look at them, Leslie and the rest, inside the Minster that
arches up so many times their height above their heads,--yet what a
little bit, a mere mousehole, it is out of the cliff itself; and then
look at the whole cliff against the Ledges, that, seen from anywhere
else, seem to run so low along the river; and compare the Ledges with
Feather-Cap, and Feather-Cap with Giant's Cairn, and Giant's Cairn with
Washington, thirty miles away!"

"It is grand surveying," said Frank Scherman.

"I think we see things from the little best," rejoined Sin Saxon.
"Washington is the big end of the telescope."

"Now you have made me look at it," said Frank Scherman, "I don't think I
have been in any other spot that has given me such a real idea of the
mountains as this. One must have steps to climb by, even in imagination.
How impertinent we are, rushing at the tremendousness of Washington in
the way we do; scaling it in little pleasure-wagons, and never taking in
the thought of it at all!"

Something suddenly brought a flush to Sin Saxon's face, and almost a
quiver to her lips. She was sitting with her hands clasped across her
knees, and her head a little bent with a downward look, after that long,
wondering mountain gaze, that had filled itself and then withdrawn for
thought. She lifted her face suddenly to her companion. The impetuous
look was in her eyes. "There's other measuring too, Frank. What a fool
I've been!"

Frank Scherman was silent. It was a little awkward for him, scarcely
comprehending what she meant. He could by no means agree with Sin Saxon
when she called herself a fool; yet he hardly knew what he was to
contradict.

"We're well placed at this minute. Leslie Goldthwaite and Dakie Thayne
and the Josselyns half way up above there, in the Minster. Mr. Wharne
and Miss Craydocke at the top. And I down here, where I belong.
Impertinence! To think of the things I've said in my silliness to that
woman, whose greatness I can no more measure! Why didn't somebody stop
me? I don't answer for you, Frank, and I won't keep you; but I think
I'll just stay where I