Page:On the Hill-top (1919).pdf/20

 "And don't you know what the matter is?—what causes it?"

Marjorie looked doubtful. "Why yes, in a way I do; but it would take so many words to say it all."

"Not necessarily," said the Dream. Keep your eye single,' would pretty nearly cover it, wouldn't it? If you had a single focus that would cover the big and beautiful things at the same time as the near and definite ones, you wouldn't get any jolts, would you?"

"N-no," said Marjorie, "but my eyes don't seem to be built that way."

"Humph!" said the Dream. "We lay lots of things to our 'build,' when it is nothing but habit and laziness that is the trouble. But go on and tell me where you were and what you were trying to understand."

"Well," said Marjorie, "I was sitting on the top of a great high hill that sloped away steeply on every side, and there were some tall trees about, with long, swaying dark green needles in great locks that swung and swung in the wind; and away off, three or four miles beyond, was a wonderful blue sea, just like a strip of blue gauze, and some tall cocoa-nut trees bending and swaying along its edge. And in the opposite direction, just about as far off, were steep green mountains with big tumbles of clouds about their tops, and cloud shadows creeping across the deep gulches and the sharp shoulders, and down below were ponds divided off into squares like mirrors and reflecting the very bluest sky and the sunniest