"How far do you suppose the air reaches from us towards the moon?"
"Why, all the way don't it?"
"No only about forty miles. If it reached all the way, there would indeed be no magnifying-glass in the case."
"But how is it?" said Ellen. "I don't understand."
"I cannot tell you to-night, Ellie. There is a long ladder of knowledge to go up before we can get to the moon, but we will begin to mount to-morrow, if nothing happens. Alice, you have that little book of Conversations on Natural Philosophy, which you and I used to delight ourselves with in old time."
"Safe and sound in the book-case," said Alice. "I have thought of giving it to Ellen before, but she has been busy enough with what she had already."
"I have done Rollin, now, though," said Ellen; "that is lucky,
I am ready for the moon."
This new study was begun the next day, and Ellen took great delight in it. She would have run on too fast in her eagerness, but for the steady hand of her teacher; he obliged her to be very thorough. This was only one of her items of business. The weeks of John's stay were, as usual, not merely weeks of constant and varied delight, but of constant and swift improvement too.
A good deal of time was given to the riding-lessons. John busied himself one morning in preparing a bar for her on the lawn, so placed that it might fall if the horse's heels touched it. Here Ellen learned to take first standing, and then running leaps. She was afraid at first, but habit wore that off; and the bar was raised higher and higher, till Margery declared she "couldn't stand and look at her going over it." Then John made her ride without the stirrup, and with her hands behind her, while he, holding the horse by a long halter, made him go round in a circle, slowly at first, and afterwards trotting and cantering, till Ellen felt almost as secure on his back as in a chair. It took a good many lessons, however, to bring her to this, and she trembled very much at the beginning. Her teacher was careful and gentle, but determined; and whatever he said she did, tremble or no tremble; and, in general, loved her riding lessons dearly.
Drawing, too, went on finely. He began to let her draw things from nature; and many a pleasant morning the three went out together with pencils and books and work, and spent hours in the open air. They would find a pretty point of view, or a nice shady place where the breeze came, and where there was some good old rock with a tree beside it, or a piece of fence, or the house or barn in the distance, for Ellen to sketch; and while she drew and Alice worked, John read aloud to them. Sometimes he took a pencil too, and Alice read; and often, often, pencils, books, and work were all laid down; and talk lively, serious, earnest, always delightful took the place of them. When Ellen could not understand the words, at least she could read the faces; and that was a study she was never weary of. At home there were other studies and much reading; many tea-drinkings on the lawn, and even breakfastings, which she thought pleasanter still.