"Father, you've spoken of that. What you said was true. It is not God's way that man should look at his own little future. Not best for us. The Almighty knows it, and has prohibited it. Chaos would result, for we live upon hope. There was no scientific reason why the myrdoscope should not show us what we were destined to do during those forty minutes. Yet--it was dead. Dark. Inoperative. "And this now I know: With all the science in the world there are some things you can not do--those things which transgress the Creator's laws. Before them--against all scientific reason, logic--we must fail. You can not see your future; you can only live it once. Nor can you go back through Time to stop in your own Past; to live again your life--to do differently than you did before. It is unthinkable--impossible, even though now we have the scientific means to accomplish it. It is not the Almighty's plan--and He will not let us do it. "We reasoned all this out. It was simple enough. We had our Time-switch which would change our Time-rate irrespective of the normal Time-change inherent to our size. . . . That was what puzzled you awhile ago, Frank? Well, now we used that Time-change mechanism. "It brought us new sensations. A shock, a queer humming lightness pervading the vehicle, the air, our own bodies. A lightness as though almost we were mere shadows of our former selves. Specters, a ghostly vehicle, humming with an infinite vibration. "Presently that all wore away; or at least we grew used to it--so that had there been anything in Space to see, as very soon there was, ourselves were the substance--all else the shadows. "We went backward very slightly in Time. I suppose some forty minutes of the girl's Time. I tested it by the myrdoscope. The instrument flashed on! It was operating! A continuous _retrograde_ action of the Time-mechanism was necessary to hold us upon that single given instant of the girl's existence. The calculation was intricate; I reached it, partly by mathematics, partly by experimentation with the myrdoscope. I saw fragments of the girl's immediate Past, as our Time-change swung us into it. Saw her arrive alone in the woodland dell. Saw her lie down, at ease, with a security unsuspecting; saw the grinning, vicious little gnomes creep upon her; the leering giant appear. And made, then, another startling discovery--I'll tell you about it in a moment. "At last I had the Time-change correctly gaged; we were--in relation to the girl--standing still in Time. Presently we again increased our size. An alteration of the Time-mechanism was needed; a progressive alteration. But this was simple to calculate and to adjust." Frannie asked, "What was your discovery?" He smiled. "Curious as always, little sister? It was that the giant was in the act of becoming _smaller_! The gnomes were growing in size!" He checked our chorus of exclamations.