Their cottage was at the foot of the mountains, on the sea-shore. Indeed, every house and cottage in the island stood on the sea-shore, because the island was so long and narrow, that, from the top of the mountain range which divided it, you could see the sea on both sides. If in any place the coast widened, little creeks ran in among the hills, and made the sea accessible from all points. The island consisted entirely of this one mountain range towering to the clouds; the higher peaks covered with snow, with a strip of coast at their feet, sometimes narrowing to a little shingly beach, sometimes expanding to a fertile plain, where beautiful cities with fairy bell-towers and marble palaces gleamed like ivory carvings amidst the palms and thick green trees. But Hope and May knew nothing of the island beyond the little bay they lived in, and no one they had ever seen or heard of had scaled the mountain range and looked on the other side; no one, either in the scattered fishermen's huts around them, or in the white town which perched like a sea-bird on the crags on the opposite side of the bay. Indeed, it was only from their mother's words that the children knew their country was an island; and ever since they had heard this, the great subject of Hope's dreams, and the great object of his schemes, had been to scale the mountains and look on the other side. But this was quite a secret between Hope and May; the happy secret which formed the endless interest of their long talks and rambles, but which they could not speak of to their mother, because she was so tenderly timid about them, and because it was to be the great surprise which one day was to enchant her, when Hope was a man. He was to scale the mountains, penetrate to the wondrous land on the other side, and bring thence untold treasures and tales of marvels to May and his mother. The children thought Hope would very soon be old enough to go; and they had a little cave in the rocks close to the sea where they treasured up dried fruits and bits of iron to make tools of with which to chop away the tangled branches in the forests, and cut steps in the glaciers which Hope was to traverse. The lower hills the children knew well; and the ravine which wound up far among the hills they had nearly fixed on as the commencement of the journey. So the days passed on with the children, rich in purposes and bright with happy work. For they were helpful to their mother. From their mountain expeditions they brought her firewood, and forest-honey, and eggs of wild-fowl, and various sweet wild-berries, and wholesome roots. They always noticed that their mother encouraged these mountain expeditions, and seemed much happier when they took that direction than when they kept by the sea. Once Hope had said to her—