At four o’clock in the morning Mrs. Lester was awakened by a knock at her door. It was from an untiring fellow-traveler, who wished to see all that was to be seen in time to return to the Grey Eagle at ten. Mrs. Lester thanked her, but said she could not get ready in time, and from her window she watched the lady, her brother, and her niece on their way to the falls and the bridge. Sightseeing seemed particularly unattractive in that grey morning twilight that clothes the landscape with a more sober livery than that of evening. After some ineffectual attempts to arouse Norman, Mrs. Lester went to the observatory, at the top of the great hotel, to see the sun rise. It was a noble view; the town of St. Anthony immediately beneath the eye; the Mississippi, with its falls, suspension bridge, and wooded island above, and the rocky chasm below; Minneapolis, with its spires and fine hotels, on the opposite side of the river, and the boundless prairie meeting the sky in that encircling horizon. [Illustration: No. 666. FALLS OF ST. ANTHONY.] At length Norman was awakened, and after sundry calls from his mother to hasten his movements, he sallied forth with her for a walk. Walking down the street for some distance, they crossed a little bridge leading past a large stone mill, and after scrambling over a stony path, they came to the edge of the river and in view of the falls. Norman’s disappointment was great. “Why, mother,” said he, “have we come all this distance to see these falls?” In truth they were not very imposing. The stream above was filled with logs, floated down to be sawed in the mill, and many of them were lodged above and below the fall, while a shingle-machine was built in the center. Man’s work had taken away all the wild grace of nature. The fall is only seventeen feet high, but the whole scene looks finely from the bridge below, and from the Minneapolis side, whence it was seen by the party that set out on their rambles at four o’clock in the morning. It was a very warm morning, but near the river the air was cool and refreshing, and Norman gathered wild roses and rose-buds in all their dewy freshness. The charm of early birds, too, was not wanting at _Owah-Menah_, the musical Indian name, changed by Father Hennepin, a French missionary, who visited this spot in 1680, to St. Anthony’s Falls. As the falls of a mighty river, they are worth seeing; and they are at the point of transition from the prairies of the Upper Mississippi, to the rugged limestone bluffs below; oaks growing above, and cedars and pines below. On their way to the hotel Norman gathered some purple flowers growing in great profusion, while his mother wandered to the suspension bridge so gracefully thrown over the river, looked at the pretty wooded island, and at the mass of drift logs collected in the boom.