ts some grander form, to be
imagined rather than descried; a glimpse of heights which, as the day
wore on, would slowly reveal themselves and bask in the broad glow
under crowning Snowdon.

'We have time! We can stay here!' said Mrs. Abbott, moved with a
profound delight.

'We have an hour at least. The sun is too hot; you must sit on the
shadowed side of the cairn.'

The great silence had nothing of that awesomeness which broods in the
mountain calm of wilder solitudes. Upon their ear fell the long low
hushing of the wood, broken suddenly from time to time by a fitful
wind, which flapped with hollow note around the great heap of stones,
whirled as if in sport, and was gone. Below, in leafy hollows, sounded
the cry of a jay, the laugh of a woodpecker; from far heath and meadow
trembled the bleat of lambs. Nowhere could be discovered a human form;
but man's dwellings, and the results of his labour, painted the wide
landscape in every direction. On mountain sides, and across the
undulating lowland, wall or hedge mapped his conquests of nature,
little plots won by the toil of successive generations for pasture or
for tillage, won from the reluctant wilderness, which loves its fern
and gorse, its mosses and heather. Near and far were scattered the
little white cottages, each a gleaming speck, lonely, humble; set by
the side of some long-winding, unfrequented road, or high on the green
upland, trackless save for the feet of those who dwelt there.

From talk of the scenery they passed, by no agreeable transition, to
the subject which as yet they had not found an opportunity of
discussing. It was necessary to arrive at some new arrangement
regarding Wager's children; for the boy, Albert, would soon be nine
years old, and, as Mrs. Abbott confessed, he had given her a great deal
of trouble. Both the children were intractable, hated lessons, and
played alarming pranks; Master Albert's latest feat might have cost him
his life, for he struck furiously through a pane of glass at a child
mocking him from the other side, and was all but fainting from loss of
blood when Mrs. Abbott came to his help. Plainly this youngster must be
sent to a boarding-school. Minnie, his sister, would be more easily
managed after he had gone.

'He'll grow up a fighter,' said Harvey. 'We can't do without fighters.
I'll make inquiry at once about a school for him, and in a year or two
we'll take counsel with his teachers. Perhaps he might go into the