Falls and the
two climbed down the steep bank, stopping now and again to yield to the
fascination of rushing water and to snuff the fresh-flying mist as it
swept into their faces.

Caught in the gully below, the stream, which had suddenly contracted a
habit of unruliness, tumbled onward under trees and through overhanging
rocks until it joined the Mississippi a half-mile away.

There were other people, hordes of them, tempted by May sunshine.

"What is it, Ellery," Dick demanded, "what deep-seated idealism is it
that draws these crowds to the most beautiful spot near town as soon as
spring offers more than half an invitation?"

"It certainly isn't a poetry that crops out in their clothes or in their
conversation," Norris grumbled. "The staple remark seems to be, 'Gee,
ain't it pretty?'"

"You mustn't expect to see aristocracy here; this is too cheap, and too
easy to reach. Your aristocrat prefers less beauty at greater effort
and more cost. This is the place to touch elbows with the populace."

They had climbed down the long winding steps by this time, and were
leaning against the parapet of a small rustic bridge that crossed below
the Falls.

"Let's sit down on that bench," said Dick, "and let the sunshine trickle
through the trees and through us, and feel the spray in our nostrils,
and delight in hanging maidenhair ferns, and watch the girls go by--the
girls in pink and blue dresses, each leaning on the arm of a swain who
grins. It's vastly more fun than a fashionable parade."

The branches met overhead, darkening the narrow chasm; the steep banks
were spattered with dutchman's breeches that fluttered like butterflies
poised for a moment; down stream a few yards, where the valley widened,
lay a tiny meadow where the sun fell full on a carpet of crow-foot
violets that gave back the May sky. Two squirrels chased each other
around a big maple, and a blue jay looked on and commented.

"Why is this stream of girls and men out for their holiday like baked
ice-cream?" asked Dick. "That isn't a conundrum; it's a philosophic
question."

"I know, they give you the same sense of incongruity," Ellery answered
lazily.

"But I like them," Dick pursued. "I like a great many more kinds of
people than you do, Norris. You are narrow-minded. You want to associate
only with the good and true and bathed."

"Oh, I wish well to the majority of the race, but there are some that I
do not care to eat with."

Something in Elle