On the northern side of the tower leaves of ungathered snow still lay. In the key-hole all winter must have been dead, crispy, last-year leaves, mingled with needles of the pine-tree that stands in the church-yard corner; for I drew out fragment after fragment, before I could find room for my key. At last the opening was free, and my precious bit of old iron had given intimation of doing duty and letting me in, when a touch upon my shoulder startled me. 'T was true the wind was as rude as possible, but I knew it never could grasp me in that way. It was Aaron. "What is the matter?" I asked; for he had come without his hat. My brother-in-law, rejoicing in the authoritative name of Aaron, looked decidedly foolish, as I turned my clear brown eyes upon him, standing flushed and anxious, with only March wind enveloping his hair all astir with breezes of Theology and Nature. "Sophie sent me," he said, with all the meekness belonging to a former family that had an Aaron in it. "What does Sophie wish?" I asked. "She says it's dinner-time." "And did she send you out in such a hurry to tell me that?" "No, Anna,"--and the importance of his mission grew upon him, for he spoke quite firmly,--"Sophie is troubled and anxious about your visit to this tower; please turn the key and come away." "I will, if you give me good reason," I said. "Why do you wish to go up, just now?" "Simply because I like it." "To gratify a passing fancy?" "Nothing more, I do assure you; but why shouldn't I?"--and I grasped the key with a small attempt at firmness of purpose. "Because Sophie dislikes it. She called to me to come and keep you from going in; there was distress in her manner. Won't you come away, for now?" He had given me a reason. I rejoice in being reasonable. I lent him a bit of knitting-work that I happened to have brought with me, with which he kept down his locks, else astray, and walked back with him. "You are not offended?" he asked, as we drew near to the door. "Oh, no!" Sophie hid something that had been very close to her eyes, as we went in. My brother-in-law gave me back my strip of knitting-work, and went upstairs. "You think I'm selfish, Anna," spoke Sophie, when he was gone. "I don't." "You can't help it, I think." "But I can. I recognize a law of equilibrium that forbids me to think so." "How? What is the law like?" "Did you ever go upon the top of a great height, whether of building or earth?" "Oh, yes,--and I'm not afraid at all. I can go out to the farthest edge, where other heads would feel the motion of the earth, perhaps, and I stand firm as though the north-pole were my support." "That is just it," replied I. "Now it puts all my fear in action, and imagination works indescribable horrors in my mind, to stand even upon a moderate elevation, or to see a little child take the first steps at the head of a staircase; and I think it would be the height of cruelty for you to go and stand where it gave me such pain."