In a few moments he was by the side of Alice. They lounged lazily along through the beautiful forest a few paces behind Rose, who was too much afraid of bugaboos to allow herself to get far away from her mistress. There was a chill in the atmosphere and now and then a fitful gust of icy wind from the northwest. Winter was coming: these avant-couriers whispered of it; and overhead, swooped high up in the blue, a host of whooping cranes, marching in chase of the sun now cheering the Antarctic just waking from his winter's sleep. "I believe, sir," said Alice, "that the ancients watched the flight of birds and predicated their predictions or prophecies upon them." "Yes, the untutored of every age and country observe more closely the operations of nature than the educated. It is their only means of learning. They see certain movements in the beasts and the birds before certain atmospheric changes, and their superstitions influence a belief, that sentient and invisible beings cause this by communicating the changes going on. The more sagacious and observant, and I may add the less scrupulous, lay hold upon this knowledge, to practice for their own pleasure or profit upon the credulity of the masses. There are very many superstitions, miss, which are endowed with a character so holy, that he who would expose them is hunted down as a wretch, unworthy of life. The older and the more ridiculous these, the more holy, and the more sacredly cherished." "Are you not afraid thus to speak--is there nothing too holy to be profanely assaulted?" "Nothing which contravenes man's reason. Truth courts investigation--the more disrobed, the more beautiful. Science reveals, that there is no mystery in truth. Its simplicity is often disfigured with unnatural and ridiculous superstitions, and these sometimes are so prominent as to conceal it. They certainly, with many, bring it into disrepute. The more intellectual pluck these off and cast them away. They see and know the truth. Yonder birds obey an instinct: the chill to their more sensitive natures warns them that the winter, or the tempest, or the rain-storm is upon them; they obey this instinct and fly from it. Yet it in due time follows these--the more observant know it, and predict it. Those, with the ancients, were sooth-sayers or prophets; with us, they are the same with the ignorant negroes; with the whites, not quite so ignorant, they are--but, miss, I will not say. I must exercise a little prudence to avoid the wrath of the ignorant--they are multitudinous and very powerful." "Kind sir, tell me, have you no superstitions? Has nothing ever occurred to you, your reason could not account for? Have no predictions, to be revealed in the coming future, come to you as foretold?" "Do not press me on that point, if you please, I might astonish and offend you."