Prince should not appear, and I can well believe
that Irene and Stanhope would have many a tumultuous passage in the
passionate symphony of their lives. But, great heavens, is the ideal
marriage a Holland!

If Marion had shed any tears overnight, say on account of a little
lonesomeness because her friend was speeding away from her
southward, there were no traces of them when she met her uncle at the
breakfast-table, as bright and chatty as usual, and in as high spirits
as one can maintain with the Rodick coffee.

What a world of shifting scenes it is! Forbes had picked up his traps
and gone off with his unreasonable companion like a soldier. The day
after, when he looked out of the window of his sleeping-compartment at
half-past four, he saw the red sky of morning, and against it the spires
of Philadelphia.

At ten o'clock the two friends were breakfasting comfortably in the car,
and running along down the Cumberland Valley. What a contrast was this
rich country, warm with color and suggestive of abundance, to the pale
and scrimped coast land of Maine denuded of its trees! By afternoon they
were far down the east valley of the Shenandoah, between the Blue Ridge
and the Massanutten range, in a country broken, picturesque, fertile, so
attractive that they wondered there were so few villages on the route,
and only now and then a cheap shanty in sight; and crossing the divide
to the waters of the James, at sundown, in the midst of a splendid
effect of mountains and clouds in a thunderstorm, they came to Natural
Bridge station, where a coach awaited them.

This was old ground to King, who had been telling the artist that the
two natural objects east of the Rocky Mountains that he thought entitled
to the epithet "sublime" were Niagara Falls and the Natural Bridge; and
as for scenery, he did not know of any more noble and refined than this
region of the Blue Ridge. Take away the Bridge altogether, which is a
mere freak, and the place would still possess, he said, a charm unique.
Since the enlargement of hotel facilities and the conversion of this
princely domain into a grand park, it has become a favorite summer
resort. The gorge of the Bridge is a botanical storehouse, greater
variety of evergreens cannot be found together anywhere else in the
country, and the hills are still clad with stately forests. In opening
drives, and cutting roads and vistas to give views, the proprietor
has shown a skill and taste in dealing wit