Alva walked swiftly on and made no reply. In less than five minutes they stood out over the gorge and looked down on its matchless glory of silver illuminating blackest shadow.
"I hope that the dam won't spoil all this," the girl said suddenly.
"You like to look at it, don't you?" Mrs. O'Neil said softly.
"Living here on its banks, as you do, I don't believe you can appreciate it!" Alva exclaimed. "Can it possibly mean to any one what it does to me, I wonder."
"I think it's pretty and I love so to look at it," said Mrs. O'Neil in gentlest sympathy.
Alva caught her hand and pressed it hard in both her own. "Do you know, Mrs. O'Neil, if I were very happy I should love best to be happy here, and if more sorrow were to be, I would choose to have that here, too. I am so close to God when I live in His country."
She took the warm hand that she held and pressed it close against her heart.
"I wish that every one was so good as you are," Mrs. O'Neil said, impulsively.
"Every one is better than we give them credit for being."
"Even those two?"