what beautiful? I do think you are the queerest girl, Ellen."
"Why, everything," said Ellen, not minding the latter part of the sentence; "the ground is beautiful, and those tall trees, and that beautiful blue sky—only look at it."
"The ground is all covered with stones and rocks—is that what you call beautiful? and the trees are as homely as they can be, with their great brown stems and no leaves. Come! what are you staring at?"
Ellen's eyes were fixed on a string of dark spots which were rapidly passing overhead.
"Hark," said she; "do you hear that noise? What is that? What is that?"
"Isn't it only a flock of ducks," said the other contemptuously; "come! do come!"
But Ellen was rooted to the ground, and her eyes followed the airy travellers till the last one had quitted the piece of blue sky which the surrounding woods left to be seen. And scarcely were these gone when a second flight came in view, following exactly in the track of the first.
"Where are they going?" said Ellen.
"I am sure I don't know where they are going; they never told me. I know where I am going; I should like to know whether you are going along with me."
Ellen, however, was in no hurry. The ducks had disappeared, but her eye had caught something else that charmed it.
"What is this?" said Ellen.
"Nothing but moss."
"Is that moss? How beautiful! how green and soft it is! I declare it's as soft as a carpet."
"As soft as a carpet!" repeated the other: "I should like to see a carpet as soft as that! you never did, I guess."
"Indeed I have, though," said Ellen, who was gently jumping up and down on the green moss to try its softness, with a face of great satisfaction.
"I don't believe it a bit," said the other; "all the carpets I ever saw were as hard as a board, and harder: as soft as that, indeed!"
"Well," said Ellen, still jumping up and down, with bonnet off, and glowing cheek, and hair dancing about her face, "you may believe what you like; but I've seen a carpet as soft as this, and softer, too; only one, though."
"What was it made of?"
"What other carpets are made of, I suppose. Come, I'll go with you now. I do think this is the loveliest place I ever did see. Are there any flowers here in the spring?"
"I don't know—yes, lots of 'em."
"Pretty ones?" said Ellen.
"You'd think so, I suppose; I never look at 'em."
"Oh, how lovely that will be," said Ellen, clasping her hands; "how pleasant it must be to live in the country!"
"Pleasant, indeed!" said the other; "I think it's hateful. You'd think so too if you lived where I do. It makes me mad at granny every day because she won't go to Thirlwall. Wait till we get out of the wood, and I'll show you where I live. You can't see it from here."
Shocked a little at her companion's language, Ellen again walked on in sober silence. Gradually the ground became more broken, sinking rapidly from the side of the path, and rising again in a steep bank on the other side of a narrow dell; both sides were thickly wooded, but stripped of green, now, except where here and there a hemlock flung its graceful branches abroad and stood in lonely beauty among its leafless companions. Now, the gurgling of waters was heard.
"Where is that?" said Ellen, stopping short.
"'Way down, down, at the bottom, there. It's the brook."
"What brook? Not the same that goes by Aunt Fortune's?"
"Yes, it's the very same. It's the crookedest thing you ever saw. It runs over there," said the speaker, pointing with her arm, "and then it takes a turn and goes that way, and then it comes round so, and then it shoots off in that way again and passes by your house; and after that the dear knows where it goes, for I don't. But I don't suppose it could run straight if it was to try to."
"Can't we get down to it?" asked Ellen.
"To be sure we can, unless you're as afraid of steep banks as you are of fences."
Very steep indeed it was, and strewn with loose stones, but Ellen did not falter here, and though once or twice in imminent danger of exchanging her cautious stepping for one long roll to the bottom, she got there safely on her two feet. When there, everything was forgotten in delight. It was a wild little place. The high, close sides of the dell left only a little strip of sky overhead; and at their feet ran the brook, much more noisy and lively here than where Ellen had before made its acquaintance; leaping from rock to rock, eddying round large stones, and boiling over the small ones, and now and then pouring quietly over some great trunk of a tree that had fallen across its bed, and dammed up the whole stream. Ellen could scarcely contain herself at the magnificence of many of the waterfalls, the beauty of the little quiet pools where the water lay still behind some large stone, and the variety of graceful, tiny cascades.
"Look here, Nancy!" cried Ellen, "that's the Falls of Niagara—do you see?—that large one; oh, that is splendid! and this will do for Trenton Falls—what a fine foam it makes—isn't it a beauty?—and what shall we call this? I don't know what to call it; I wish we could name them all, but there's no end to them. Oh, just look at that one! that's too pretty not to have a name. What shall it be?"
"Black Falls," suggested the other.
"Black," said Ellen dubiously, "why—I don't like that."
"Why, the water's all dark and black, don't you see?"
"Well," said Ellen, "let it be Black, then; but I don't like it. Now remember—this is Niagara—that is Black—and this is Trenton. And what is this?"
"If you are a-going to name them all," said Nancy, "we sha'n't get home to-night; you might as well name all the trees; there's a hundred of 'em and more. I say, Ellen! suppos'n we follow the brook instead of climbing up yonder again; it will take us out to the open fields by-and-by."
"Oh, do let's!" said Ellen; "that will be lovely."
It proved a rough way; but Ellen still thought and called it "lovely." Often by the side of the stream there was no footing at all, and the girls picked their way over the stones, large and small, wet and dry, which strewed its bed, against which the water foamed and fumed and fretted, as if in great impatience. It was ticklish work getting along over these stones; now tottering on an unsteady one, now slipping on a wet one, and every now and then making huge leaps from rock to rock, which there was no other method of reaching, at the imminent hazard of falling in. But they laughed at the danger; sprang on in great glee, delighted with the exercise and the fun; didn't stay long enough anywhere to lose their balance, and enjoyed themselves amazingly. There was many a hairbreadth escape, many an almost sousing; but that made it all the more lively. The brook formed, as Nancy had said, a constant succession of little waterfalls, its course being quite steep and very rocky; and in some places there were pools quite deep enough to have given them a thorough wetting, to say no more, if they had missed their footing and tumbled in. But this did not happen. In due time, though with no little difficulty, they reached the spot where the brook came forth from the wood into the open day, and thence
