"It is dreadful to me to see you suffer so;
I will go very slowly. Indeed, it is safe; we all came up here, the
whole band, for the sheep-shearing,-- old Fernando on his horse all
the way."
"Really," said Ramona, taking comfort at each word, "I will try not
to be so silly. Is it far, dearest Alessandro?"
"Not much more as steep as this, dear, nor so narrow; but it will be
an hour yet before we stop."
But the worst was over for Ramona now, and long before they
reached the bottom of the precipice she was ready to laugh at her
fears; only, as she looked back at the zigzag lines of the path over
which she had come,-- little more than a brown thread, they
seemed, flung along the rock,-- she shuddered.
Down in the bottom of the canon it was still the dusky gloaming
when they arrived. Day came late to this fairy spot. Only at high
noon did the sun fairly shine in. As Ramona looked around her,
she uttered an exclamation of delight, which satisfied Alessandro.
"Yes," he said, "when I came here for the ferns, I wished to myself
many times that you could see it.
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