lor last night."

Isabel dashed her veil over her face, clutched Basil's with her icy
hand, rose, drew her arm convulsively through his, and walked ashore
without a word.

In a sheltered nook they sat down, and she quickly "repaired her
drooping head and tricked her beams" again. He could 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 himse