"You speak as if you agreed that the Germans really are the makers of windows that Mr Enderby supposes them," observed Margaret; "but you do not think we are any nearer the end of mysteries than ever, do you?" "Oh, no; not till we have struck our stone to the bottom of the universe, and walked round it: and I am not aware that the Germans pretend to be able to do that, any more than other people. Indeed, I think there are as many makers of grottoes as explorers of caves among them. What do you want, my dear?" This last was addressed to George, whose round face, red with exertion, appeared at a back window. The little girls were hoisting him up, that he might call out once more, "Uncle Philip, be sure you remember not to tell." "It would be a pity that mysteries should come to an end," observed Mr Enderby, "when they seem to please our human tastes so well. See there, how early the love of mystery begins! and who can tell where it ends? Is there one of your pupils, Miss Young, in whom you do not find it?" "Not one; but is there not a wide difference between the love of making mysteries, and a taste for finding them out?" "Do you not find both in children, and up into old age?" "In children, one usually finds both: but I think the love of mystery-making and surprises goes off as people grow wiser. Fanny and Mary were plotting all last week how to take their sister Sophia by surprise with a piece of India-rubber, a token of fraternal affection, as they were pleased to call it; and you see George has a secret to-day: but they will have fewer hidings and devices every year: and, if they grow really wise, they will find that, amidst the actual business of life, there is so much more safety, and ease, and blessing in perfect frankness than in any kind of concealment, that they will give themselves the liberty and peace of being open as the daylight. Such is my hope for them. But all this need not prevent their delighting in the mysteries which are not of man's making." "They will be all the more at leisure for them," said Margaret, "from having their minds free from plots and secrets." "Surely you are rather hard upon arts and devices," said Philip. "Without more or fewer of them, we should make our world into a Palace of Truth,--see the Veillees du Chateau, which Matilda is reading with Miss Young. Who ever read it, that did not think the Palace of Truth the most disagreeable place in the world?" "And why?" asked Margaret. "Not because the people in it spoke truth; but because the truth which they spoke was hatred, and malice, and selfishness." "And how much better," inquired Hester, "is the truth that we should speak, if we were as true as the daylight? I hope we shall always be allowed to make mysteries of our own selfish and unkind fancies. There would be little mutual respect left if these things were told."