taste, but still her soft blue eye
was riveted on the pine.

"Silent it may be, in one respect, but it is, indeed, all eloquence
in another," she resumed, with a fervour that was not lessened by
Paul's remark. "That crest of verdure, which resembles a plume of
feathers, speaks of a thousand things to the imagination."

"I have never known a person of any poetry, who came under this
tree," said John Effingham, "that did not fall into this very train
of thought. I once brought a man celebrated for his genius here, and,
after gazing for a minute or two at the high, green tuft that tops
the tree, he exclaimed, 'that mass of green waved there in the fierce
light when Columbus first ventured into the unknown sea.' It is,
indeed, eloquent; for it tells the same glowing tale to all who
approach it--a tale fraught with feeling and recollections."

"And yet its silence is, after all, its eloquence," added Paul; "and
the name is not so misplaced as one might at first think."

"It probably obtained its name from some fancied contrast to the
garrulous rocks that lie up yonder, half concealed by the forest. If
you will ply the oars, gentlemen, we will now hold a little communion
with the spirit of the Leather-stocking."

The young men complied; and in about five minutes, the skiff was off
in the lake, at the distance of fifty rods from the shore, where the
whole mountainside came at one glance into the view. Here they lay on
their oars, and John Effingham called out to the rocks a "good
morning," in a clear distinct voice. The mocking sounds were thrown
back again, with a closeness of resemblance that actually startled
the novice. Then followed other calls and other repetitions of the
echoes, which did not lose the minutest intonation of the voice.

"This actually surpasses the celebrated echoes of the Rhine," cried
the delighted Eve; "for, though those do give the strains of the
bugle so clearly, I do not think they answer to the voice with so
much fidelity."

"You are very right, Eve," replied her kinsman, "for I can recall no
place where so perfect and accurate an echo is to be heard as at
these speaking rocks. By increasing our distance to half a mile, and
using a bugle, as I well know, from actual experiment, we should get
back entire passages of an air. The interval between the sound and
the echo, too, would be distinct, and would give time for an
undivided attention. Whatever may be said of the 'pine,' these rocks
are