knowing what she did. Or, what if the pond had been a river, and she were
now floating away, helpless, out of reach of any who came to save her, to
some far-off dam where the water roared and splashed on cruel rocks. Or
she might, in her dream, have tipped over the boat where the water was
deep, and been unable to swim, encumbered by her clothing. Then she might
have been such a girl as Sarah Rowe, who would have suffered agonies of
fright at waking to find herself in such a place. But she had been led to
the quiet, familiar Basin, and no harm had come to her, and she had good
strong nerves, and lost all her fear in five minutes, so that the
mischance would end only in an exciting adventure, which would give her
something to talk about as long as she lived.

Well; she was sure she was very thankful to--whom? and Gypsy bowed her
head a little at the question, and she sat a moment very still.

Then she had other thoughts. She looked up at the shadowed mountains, and
thought how year after year, summer and winter, day and night, those
terrible masses of rock had cleaved together, and stood still, and caught
the rains and the snows and vapors, the golden crowns of sunsets and
sunrisings, the cooling winds and mellow moonlights, and done all their
work of beauty and of use, and done it aright. _"Not one faileth."_ No
avalanche had thundered down their sides, destroying such happy homes as
hers. No volcanic fires had torn them into seething lava. No beetling
precipice, of which she ever heard, had fallen and crushed so much as the
sheep feeding in the valleys. To the power of the hills as to the power of
the seas, Someone had said, Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther.

And the Hand that could uphold a mountain in its place, was the Hand that
had guided her--one little foolish, helpless girl, out of millions and
millions of creatures for whom He was caring--in the wanderings of an