"There's springs every place. I could count you a half a dozen in less'n half a mile."
"Ay, but the springs come from the hills; and if it were not for the hills they would not be anywhere."
"O' course it's so, since you say it," said Mr. Purcell, scratching his head with a comic expression of eye;—"but I never see the world when there warn't no hills on it; and I reckon you didn't."
Rotha let the question drop.
"I s'pose you'd say, accordin' to that, the rocks made the soft soil?"
"They have made a good deal of it," said Rotha smiling.
"Whose hammer broke 'em up?"
"No hammer. But water, and weather; frost and wet and sunshine."
"Sunshine!" cried Mr. Purcell.
"They are always wearing away the rocks. They do it slowly, and yet faster than you think."