they had got so high--though none the less her children, and doomed
to descend again to her bosom. A keen little wind is out, crisping
the surface of the sea in patches--a pretty large crisping to be
seen from that height, for the window looks over hill above hill to
the sea. Life, quiet yet eager, is all about; the solitude itself is
alive, content to be a solitude because it is alive. Its life needs
nothing from beyond--is independent even of the few sails of fishing
boats that here and there with their red brown break the blue of the
water.

If my reader, gently obedient to my thaumaturgy, will now turn and
cross to the other window, let him as he does so beware of casting a
glance on his right towards the place he has left at the table, for
the room will now look to him tenfold commonplace, so that he too
will be inclined to ask, "How come these and their belongings HERE
--just HERE?"--let him first look from the window. There he sees
hills of heather rolling away eastward, at middle distance beginning
to rise into mountains, and farther yet, on the horizon, showing
snow on their crests--though that may disappear and return several
times before settling down for the winter. It is a solemn and very
still region--not a PRETTY country at all, but great--beautiful with
the beauties of colour and variety of surface; while, far in the
distance, where the mountains and the clouds have business together,
its aspect rises to grandeur. To his first glance probably not a
tree will be discoverable; the second will fall upon a solitary
clump of firs, like a mole on the cheek of one of the hills not far
off, a hill steeper than most of them, and green to the top.

Is my reader seized with that form of divine longing which wonders
what lies over the nearest hill? Does he fancy, ascending the other