"How tiny Brent looks from up here," laughed Margery; "just a grey smudge and no more. And Brent Hill, shrunk to no bigger than a slice of cake on end!" "It's good to get a bird's view sometimes," said Jacob. "Steadies the mind and makes you see things their proper size compared to other things." "But I was angry the first time I came up here, as a little one with a school treat," continued the girl. "Properly vexed I was, because it seemed all wrong somehow in my young eyes that the houses should be so small and the church and chapels no more than spots. And Marley Wood, that had always seemed to me the most wonderful place of mysteries on earth, was just a dark dab no bigger than a coal-scuttle, and the railway a thread, and the great thundering trains no bigger nor faster than caterpillars! It didn't seem right to have things turned upside down like that." "I bet you were glad to go down among the familiar sights again and find they hadn't changed, Margery." "But they had," she answered. "I couldn't forget. I tried--I tried hard, but children remember so. I hated the Beacon for days after that, and was always glad when his head was covered with clouds, so I couldn't see him. I thought he was a wicked monster that had gone and spoiled things I set store by, and showed me they were small and mean compared to him. But after to-day I'll forgive him." Jacob felt mildly surprised at this unexpected glimpse into his sweetheart's mind. "Who'd have thought a chit of a child could get such fancies," he said; "but I dare say girls are different from boys and dream all manner of funny things like that." "Don't boys dream too?" she asked. "Maybe some do. I never did. All the same I like to hear about your dreaming. Pretty I call it." "No, you don't, Jacob. You'd call it silly in anybody but me. But so it was. I made up things and told 'em to other children. And I tried telling 'em to my brother, Thomas, who was some years younger than me. He had a great contempt for girls, however. He was just short of seventeen when he died, poor little chap." "Took after your mother, she says." "Yes, terrible serious, and that good! Goodness was his nature. Jeremy's more like me." "Your mother's a thought stern." Margery nodded. "Brings religion into everything," she answered. "A wonderful mother she's been. You mustn't mind my seeing a lot of her after we're married, Jacob. The little that's good in me I owe to her." "You're frightened of her?" Margery considered this. "I was--we all were. A sort of love we'd got that didn't cast out fear exactly. But I'm not frightened of her now. I trust her so in every thing. Where there's perfect trust, there didn't ought to be fear." "I feel a very great respect of her, but she's hard," declared Jacob.