reciprocity of influence as might have been expected between a dark
lady and a flaxen-haired youth making itself apparent in the faces
of each.

'Don't let me interrupt your observations,' said she.

'Ah, no,' said he, again applying his eye; whereupon his face lost
the animation which her presence had lent it, and became immutable
as that of a bust, though superadding to the serenity of repose the
sensitiveness of life. The expression that settled on him was one
of awe. Not unaptly might it have been said that he was worshipping
the sun. Among the various intensities of that worship which have
prevailed since the first intelligent being saw the luminary decline
westward, as the young man now beheld it doing, his was not the
weakest. He was engaged in what may be called a very chastened or
schooled form of that first and most natural of adorations.

'But would you like to see it?' he recommenced. 'It is an event
that is witnessed only about once in two or three years, though it
may occur often enough.'

She assented, and looked through the shaded eyepiece, and saw a
whirling mass, in the centre of which the blazing globe seemed to be
laid bare to its core. It was a peep into a maelstrom of fire,
taking place where nobody had ever been or ever would be.

'It is the strangest thing I ever beheld,' she said. Then he looked
again; till wondering who her companion could be she asked, 'Are you
often here?'