Once more the Maid of the Mist was seen urging her way close beneath the American Falls. The figures on her deck, in their waterproof dresses, looked weird and unearthly as they stood looking up to that mass of descending waters, and enveloped in the clouds of spray. On their way home Mrs. Lester stopped to purchase some curious fossils from a man who had his stand under some trees, and she sat awhile on a chair he placed for her on the grass, looking at the view, which is exceedingly fine from this point, commanding the fearful chasm and the rugged rocks on the Canada side.
The same walk in the afternoon, when they descended the stone steps leading to the path under Table Rock: down, down by the side of those stupendous cliffs, towering upward in their might, the water trickling along the crevices, till they stood beneath the overhanging Table Rock and looked upward at that mass of falling waters.
“This I like better than all,” said Norman; “how much I would like to go behind the sheet of water.”
“No, indeed,” replied his mother, “I do not mean that you shall go there. But is not this grand!”
A few minutes only and they retraced their steps, gathering some blue hare-bells growing out of the crevices of these rude cliffs.
Slowly, slowly the shadow of the hills crept up the falls, vailing their dazzling beauty, and obscuring their radiant bows. The sunset came too soon to close that day of exceeding beauty; but then the moon faintly lighted up the splendors of the scene, kindling the rapids above the falls, and making a path of light in the profound depths below. A little way in the moonlight, down the road to the ferry, to gaze on the wonders of that fearful chasm, softened rather than heightened by that silvery light.
No lunar bow to be seen till late in the night from the Canada side. Those who looked that night from Goat Island and the Tower saw it in great beauty.
CHAPTER XXIV.
HOME AGAIN.
Then tell me, what have you brought home? If but an olive leaf, let us have it; come, unpack your budget.
Mrs. Jameson.