"You would rather listen to the song of the robin, and of our northern mocking-bird, than to the roaring of the angry river?" "There is no anger in the sound, William," she replied, looking up into his face; "It is the shout of praise to its Creator, and the dashing of the torrents over the rocks are the clapping of its hands." "You are right, Faith. How much better you are tuned to the meanings of nature than I?" "You do yourself injustice. It was your love of all this beauty that induced you to invite me to this walk. Without you I should have missed it, nor known what I had lost." William Bernard sighed. She has not, he thought, the least suspicion that I love her. She does not know, and would not care if she did, that, by her side, the only prospect I behold is herself, and the invitation to this stroll but a pretext to approach her. "Your presence, dear Faith," said he, "imparts a double charm to the scenery." "It is sweet," she answered, leaning, as it seemed to him, at the moment, more affectionately on his arm, "to have one to whom we can say, how lovely is all this loveliness." "The sentiment of the Poet never seemed so true before," said Bernard, looking at her with admiration. She made no reply, for her whole soul was absorbed by the view before her. They had arrived at the platform, which, somewhat higher than the Fall, commands a prospect of the river and surrounding country. Below them foamed and thundered the torrent, which, first, making a leap some twenty feet down, over large, irregularly-shaped boulders of granite, that strove to oppose its passage, rushed in a steep descent over a bed of solid stone, irregularly worn by the action of the water; and, then, contracting itself between its adamantine walls, burst in distracted fury, like a maniac, from the narrow throat. Against the opposing rocks, which, perhaps, had fallen into the Yaupaae, when the fierce convulsion of nature opened the chasm, and bade the river pour down the gorge--the water lashed with ceaseless rage, throwing the spray high into the air. This, freezing as it fell, encrusted the rough sides of the beetling crags with icy layers, covering them all over with plates like silver, and hanging them with stalactites. Right in front, and separated only by the narrow pass from the ledge on which they stood, still higher than which it rose, towered a huge rock, perpendicularly, to a height of ninety or one hundred feet above the cataract. Its foam-beaten base, just above the water, was encased in icy incrustations, higher up, gray moss overspread its flat side, and tufts of cedar struggled through the fissures, whilst its top was canopied with hemlocks and savins, and white oaks. Looking towards the left, the eye swept over the green hill-side, along which they had walked, and, glancing over the islands in the Yaupaae, followed the winding coarse of the river, catching here and there on ground, that sloped to the stream, the sight of