Not on a dusty
afternoon, but when there has been or is a shower. Not the locomotive,
or the tender, or the cars, though the long chain has a sort of
grandeur, as its links wind into the bays and round the promontories,
express. But get a river-side seat, and keep your patience up the
lumbered length of Tenth Avenue, and restrain your impatience as the
train goes at half-stroke along that first bit of road where people are
fond of getting on the track; watch the other shore, meantime, or the
instructive market gardens on this; then feel the quickened speed, as
the engine gets her "head;" then use your eyes. Open your windows
boldly; people don't get cold from our North river air; never mind the
sun; hold up a veil or a fan; only look. See how the shore rises into
the Palisades, up which the March of Improvement finds such uncertain
footing: how the rising points of hill are rounded with shadow and
sunlight, and green from river to crown. See how the clouds roll softly
up on the further side, giving showers here and there--how the
white-winged vessels sail and careen and float. Look up the river from
Peekskill, and see how the hills lock in and part. Think of the train
of circumstances that rushed down Arnold's point that long ago morning,
where a so different train now passes. Mark the rounding outlines of
the green Highlands, and as you near Garrisons' let your eye follow the
sunbeam that darts down the little mill creek just opposite the tunnel.
Then on through those beloved hills, till they fall off right and left,
and you are out upon Newburgh bay in the full glory of the sunset.
After this (if you are tired looking) you may talk for a while, till
the blue heads of the Catskill catch your eye and hold it.

The blue range was a dim outline--hardly that--when Faith reached her
journey's end that night. She could hear the dash of the river, and see
the brilliant stars, but all details waited for morning; and the
morning was Sunday. Balmy, cloudless, the very air put Faith almost in
Elysium; and between dreamy enjoyment, and a timid sense of her own new
name and position, she would have liked for herself an oriole's nest on
one of the high branches. Failing that, she seemed--as her hostess and
again an old friend of Mr. Linden's told him--"like a very rosebud; as
sweet, and as much shut up to herself."

Truth to tell, she kept something of the same manner and seeming next
day. The house was very full, and of a very ga