They happened to turn their steps towards the fall of Lodore. The spot is curiously sequestered, and the space on which the water precipitates itself, from an immense perpendicular height, does not appear larger, than the dimensions of a small room. The steep and rugged rock rises on three sides till roofed by the sky; the central side of the hollow square, is that over which, broken at various elevations by black projections of flinty stone, the torrent rushes; from both the other sides, mountain ash and various sort of trees, rooted in every crevice, stretch their branches across, between the eye of the spectator, and the white sheet of descending foam. The fourth side, or ground facing the fall, is a steep sloping bank, thickly covered with large trees, beneath the shade of which, a narrow path leads down to the edge of the water. Here a seat is placed, on which two persons may find accommodation; and if disposed to tell each other very profound secrets, feel quite secure from the danger of being overheard; for the fall, which is exactly opposite, plunges at their very feet, with a din so tremendous, that the most attentive listener, standing at but a few yards distance, though he should see their lips in motion, could distinguish no sound of their voices, and would be tempted to fancy, they conversed but in dumb show. Julia and Frances descended this path, and took possession of this seat. Julia instantly turned, and throwing her arms round her sister’s neck, murmured in a slow whisper, “Oh! Frances, why did you say it was me he loved?” It is a curious fact, that, in this situation, persons quite close to each other, can hear whispers more distinctly than they could the voice in its natural key. It would seem that the open tones were more prone to assimilate with the loud sounds abroad, and so become confounded with them. “I thought so, Julia,” answered Frances, who also whispered, “and I should think so still, even by the very wording of that letter; but that I know, you have not said or done any thing of late, to change, so suddenly, any hopes he may ever have ventured to entertain, into all this mighty despair! Yet, who else has shown him a friendship that could be mistaken for love? as he seems to infer. With whom else has he had time or opportunity to indulge in this ‘dream, this delirium of unreal bliss;’ of which he talks so wildly?” Julia thought of her late parting with Edmund, and paused a few seconds: then sighed, and said,