xcitement that
attends travel in an open horse-car. When he stepped out of the car
he felt that increase of courage which comes to every man after
safely passing through danger. He resolved to brave the mists and
slippery-stones at the foot of the Fall; and he would have plunged at
once into this fresh peril, if he had not been prevented by the Prospect
Park Company. This ingenious association has built a large tunnel-like
shed quite to the water's edge, so that you cannot view the cataract
as you once could, at a reasonable remoteness, but must emerge from the
building into a storm of spray. The roof of the tunnel is painted with
a lively effect in party-colored stripes, and is lettered "The Shadow
of the Rock," so that you take it at first to be an appeal to your
aesthetic sense; but the real object of the company is not apparent till
you put your head out into the tempest, when you agree with the nearest
guide--and one is always very near--that you had better have an oil-skin
dress, as Basil did. He told the guide that he did not wish to go under
the Fall, and the guide confidentially admitted that there was no fun in
that, any way; and in the mean time he equipped him and his children for
their foray into the mist. When they issued forth, under their friend's
leadership, Basil felt that, with his children clinging to each hand, he
looked like some sort of animal with its young, and, though not unsocial
by nature, he was glad to be among strangers for the time. They climbed
hither and thither over the rocks, and lifted their streaming faces for
the views which the guide pointed out; and in a rift of the spray they
really caught one glorious glimpse of the whole sweep of the Fall. The
next instant the spray swirled back, and they were glad to turn for
a sight of the rainbow, lying in a circle on the rocks as quietly and
naturally as if that had been the habit of rainbows ever since the
flood. This was all there was to be done, and they streamed back into
the tunnel, where they disrobed in the face of a menacing placard, which
announced that the hire of a guide and a dress for going under the Fall
was one dollar.

"Will they make you pay a dollar for each of us, papa?" asked Tom,
fearfully.

"Oh, pooh, no!" returned Basil; "we have n't been under the Fall." But
he sought out the proprietor with a trembling heart. The proprietor was
a man of severely logical mind; he said that the charge would be three
dollars, for th