ld see her tearfully smiling
through her veil. "My dear," he said, "I don't ask an explanation of your
fright, for I don't suppose you could give it. But should you mind
telling me why those people were so sovereign against it?"

"Why, dearest! Don't you understand? That Mrs. Richard--whoever she
is--is so much like me."

She looked at him as if she had made the most satisfying statement, and
he thought he had better not ask further then, but wait in hope that the
meaning would come to him. They walked on in silence till they came to
the Biddle Stairs, at the head of which is a notice that persons have
been killed by pieces of rock from the precipice overhanging the shore
below, and warning people that they descend at their peril. Isabel
declined to visit the Cave of the Winds, to which these stairs lead, but
was willing to risk the ascent of Terrapin Tower. "Thanks; no," said her
husband. "You might find it unsafe to come back the way you went up. We
can't count certainly upon the appearance of the lady who is so much like
you; and I've no fancy for spending my life on Terrapin Tower." So he
found her a seat, and went alone to the top of the audacious little
structure standing on the verge of the cataract, between the smooth curve
of the Horse-Shoe and the sculptured front of the Central Fall, with the
stormy sea of the Rapids behind, and the river, dim seen through the
mists, crawling away between its lofty bluffs before. He knew again the
awful delight with which so long ago he had watched the changes in the
beauty of the Canadian Fall as it hung a mass of translucent green from
the brink, and a pearly white seemed to crawl up from the abyss, and
penetrate all its substance to the very crest, and then suddenly vanished
from it, and perpetually renewed the same effect. The mystery of the
rising vapors veiled the gulf into which the cataract swooped; the sun
shone, and a rainbow dreamed upon them.

Near the foot of the tower, some loose rocks extend quite to the verge,
and here Basil saw an elderly gentleman skipping from one slippery stone
to another, and looking down from time to time into the abyss, who, when
he had amused himself long enough in this way, clambered up on the plank
bridge. Basil, who had descended by this time, made bold to say that he
thought the diversion an odd one and rather dangerous. The gentleman took
this in good part, and owned it might seem so, but added that a
distinguished phrenologist