"
Very steep indeed it was, and strewn with loose stones; but
Ellen did not falter here, and though once or twice in
imminent danger of exchanging her cautious stepping for one
long roll to the bottom, she got there safely on her two feet.
When there, everything was forgotten in delight. It was a wild
little place. The high, close sides of the dell left only a
little strip of sky overhead; and at their feet ran the brook,
much more noisy and lively here than where Ellen had before
made its acquaintance; leaping from rock to rock, eddying
round large stones, and boiling over the small ones, and now
and then pouring quietly over some great trunk of a tree that
had fallen across its bed and dammed up the whole stream.
Ellen could scarcely contain herself at the magnificence of
many of the waterfalls, the beauty of the little quiet pools
where the water lay still behind some large stone, and the
variety of graceful tiny cascades.
"Look here, Nancy!" cried Ellen; "that's the Falls of Niagara
— do you see? — that large one; oh, that is splendid! And this
will do for Trenton Falls — what a fine foam it makes! — isn't
it a beauty? And what shall we call this? I don't know what to
call it; I wish we could name them all. But there's no end to
them. Oh, just look at that one! That's too pretty not to have
a name; what shall it be?"
"Black Falls," suggested the other.
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