I've traced these bits of broken stone all the way from yonder mountain hither; and that once my tower stood firm and fast in the hill's heart, I know.
There are sides and curves, concaves and convexities, and angles of every degree, in the stones that make up my tower. The vexing question is, What conglomerated the mass?
No known form of cement is here, and so the simple village-people say, "It was not built by the present race of men."
On the northern side of the tower leaves of ungathered snow still lay.
In the key-hole all winter must have been dead, crispy, last-year leaves, mingled with needles of the pine-tree that stands in the church-yard corner; for I drew out fragment after fragment, before I could find room for my key. At last the opening was free, and my precious bit of old iron had given intimation of doing duty and letting me in, when a touch upon my shoulder startled me.
'T was true the wind was as rude as possible, but I knew it never could grasp me in that way. It was Aaron.
"What is the matter?" I asked; for he had come without his hat.
My brother-in-law, rejoicing in the authoritative name of Aaron, looked decidedly foolish, as I turned my clear brown eyes upon him, standing flushed and anxious, with only March wind enveloping his hair all astir with breezes of Theology and Nature.
"Sophie sent me," he said, with all the meekness belonging to a former family that had an Aaron in it.
"What does Sophie wish?" I asked.