ve given it birth, as a diving fish is
swallowed up by water and lost to sight. This vision lingered in Angela's
memory as one of the loveliest of the day; but the great cataracts did
their startling best, later, to paint out the earlier pictures.

Even the first slender forerunners of the mighty torrents were
unforgettable, and individual. Long, ethereal, floating white feathers
drooped from the heads of tremendous boulders that were gray with the
glossy grayness of old silver. Cascades were everywhere; and the weaving
of many diamond-skeins of water behind a dark foreground of motionless
trees was like the ceaseless play of human thought behind inscrutable
faces whose expression never changed.

Yet these silver tapestries, pearl-embroidered, were but the binding for
the Book of the Valley, the great poem of the waterfalls; and as the stage
brought them near the home of the mighty cataracts, Nick and Angela
noticed that the atmosphere became mysteriously different. The sky rolled
down a blue curtain, to trail on the floor of the valley, like a veil
suspended before an altar-piece. Through this curtain of exquisite
texture--bright as spun glass, transparent as star-sapphires, and faintly
shimmering--their gaze travelled toward soaring peaks and boulders, which
seemed to rise behind the sky instead of against it. Then, suddenly, out
gleamed the dome of the Bridal Veil, bright and high in the heavens as a
comet sweeping a glittering tail earthward.

Later, as the stage wound along the road and brought them under the wall
of the cataract, the rainbow diadem that pinned the topmost folds of the
veil glittered against the noonday sun; and in the lacy woof of moving
water, lovely kaleidoscopic patterns played with constant interchange of
flowery designs. Invisible fingers wove the bridal lace, beading with
diamonds the foliage of its design; or so Angela thought when first she
saw the falls. But presently she made a discovery--one which Nick had made
years ago, and kept the secret that Angela might have the joy of finding
it for herself.

"Why, it isn't a veil, after all!" she exclaimed.

"I know," said Nick. "That effect's only for the first few minutes, like a
stage curtain hiding the real thing."

"And the real thing is only for the elect, like us," said Angela,
conceitedly. "Outsiders can't get behind the curtain. Let me tell you what
I see."

"And if we see the same thing?"

"Why, it would be a sign that we'd be