It was fearful to think of; but how many are daily and hourly borne, by the mighty tides of worldliness and sin, over a more tremendous precipice; and there are no cries or prayers of pitying love; no man careth for their souls! Norman was very silent as he looked for the first time on that wondrous fall, the sight of which, he said, took away his strength. He felt awed and solemnized by this mighty display of God’s mighty works. By the path on Goat Island, not beautiful and attractive as usual, for the trees had not put on their heavy foliage, and the path was wet and muddy, they walked to a little rural building, where, sheltered from the falling rain, they could look down upon the Horse-Shoe Fall. On one point in this magnificent cataract Norman loved to look; it was the angular central point where the stream is greatest in volume, and where its exquisite hue of emerald green continually breaks into snowy whiteness. “I have heard those falling waters compared to the robes of a goddess continually falling from her shoulders,” said Mrs. Lester; “but the thought is scarcely spiritual enough to satisfy one.” “It seems too grand to say anything about it,” said Norman; “it makes me so silent.” “‘Come then, expressive Silence, muse thy praise,’ is a most fitting invocation at this place,” replied his mother. “I have been looking all round for you,” said a lady, whom they had found the day before to be a most agreeable fellow-traveler, as she alighted from the carriage, “and they told me at the hotel that you had gone to Goat Island, so I came here with the expectation of finding you.” After looking awhile at the fall, they descended the hill, crossed the Terrapin bridge, and ascending the winding staircase in the stone tower, they came out on the circular balcony above. It was fearful to look from that giddy height down into the foaming depths below, and in the midst of those maddening waters one could scarcely believe that the town had a foundation sufficiently firm to resist their onward course. The columns of spray, driven by the east wind, almost obscured the opposite cliffs. Mrs. Bushnell wished Mrs. Lester and Norman to accompany her in her drive round Goat Island home; but they preferred another hour spent in sight of the fall. Many carriages drove up while they sat there, and men with cigars in their mouths jumped out, ran down the hill, over the bridge, and up the stairs to the tower, where they took a hurried look at the mighty torrent, and speedily regained their carriages and were off. “I really think, mother,” said Norman, “that we are enjoying Niagara more than any one. We are having such a long look.”