s bad! And after all there was no old ferry answering to the name
of "Dingman," but a wide bridge in its place. On the other side was
Pennsylvania, with a barred gate to keep you out of it until you had
handed over forty cents to a wee boy who "held us up" and firmly said,
"You've got to pay!" He lived in a pet of a house, where I should love
to live, myself (with Jack), and the entrance to the neighbour state was
so fine as to seem dramatic.

The smooth tarred road was a relief, too, after a few hard bumps: a
lovely tree-shadowed road past a big yellow-painted hotel; past a
delightful village high above the river bed, where a great forest made a
dark, perfumed screen between our eyes and the bright glitter of
water. So we dipped down by and by to a house with a garden full of
flowers, and a forest of its own with the river sparkling through it.
The hemlocks gave out a perfume as if a box of spices had been newly
opened; and when we saw that the house was a hotel and restaurant we
simply had to stop for tea. To our surprise and joy we found that the
man who kept the place was a Frenchman--an Alsatian named Schanno; and
everything he gave us was so delicious we might have been at Ciro's, in
Paris or Monte Carlo!

[Illustration: DELAWARE WATER GAP "Winding and wonderful it was in
beauty, as we dropped into its deep, intimate valley, down the
tremendous slope"]

Almost, it would have been a relief, said Jack, to find the scenery less
beautiful, so as to have a diminuendo and a crescendo--the crescendo to
be our goal of that day, the Water Gap. But it _would_ keep on being so
lovely, we could scarcely say when it was just _good_, when better, or
when best. We had a gray road, glossy as a beaver's back, to travel on
toward the Gap; a valley road with small mountains lifting curly dark
heads in every direction to gaze down on us out of their glistening,
perfumed foot-bath of evening mist. The villages we passed had pretty,
sophisticated-looking new houses for "summer people"; here and there was
a charming country inn with the air of being famous. At Bushkill (nice
name!) the brown river forked, in a coquettish, laughing way shaking
hands with itself and parting in the woods. Nearby was a glorious
waterfall among charming hills which seemed to have been roused by the
music of the cataract, and sat up with their hair standing all on end.

Four or five miles from the great Water Gap we began to see the
formation which gives