re belongs to me. I am anxious that it should 'boom'--that
is the correct term, is it not?--and a sensation is good for 'booming.'
What an advertisement would ensue if the lovely daughter of an American
millionaire should be in danger of drowning in the Long Cloud, and a
rough but honest fellow--a foreman on the river, maybe a young member
of the English aristocracy in disguise--perilled his life for her! The
place of peril would, of course, be named Lover's Eddy, or the Maiden's
Gate--very much prettier, I assure you, than such cold-blooded things as
the Devil's Slide, where we are going now, and much more attractive to
tourists."

"Miss Devlin," laughed I, "you have all the eagerness of the incipient
millionaire. May I hope to see you in Lombard Street some day, a very
Katherine among capitalists?--for, from your remarks, I judge that you
would--I say it pensively--'wade through slaughter to a throne.'"

Galt Roscoe, who was just ahead with Mrs. Revel and Amy Devlin, turned
and said: "Who is that quoting so dramatically? Now, this is a picnic
party, and any one who introduces elegies, epics, sonnets, 'and such,'
is guilty of breaking the peace at Viking and its environs. Besides,
such things should always be left to the parson. He must not be
outflanked, his thunder must not be stolen. The scientist has unlimited
resources; all he has to do is to be vague, and look prodigious; but the
parson must have his poetry as a monopoly, or he is lost to sight, and
memory."

"Then," said I, "I shall leave you to deal with Miss Devlin yourself,
because she is the direct cause of my wrong-doing. She has expressed the
most sinister sentiments about Viking and your very extensive parish.
Miss Devlin," I added, turning to her, "I leave you to your fate, and I
cannot recommend you to mercy, for what Heaven made fair should remain
tender and merciful, and--"

"'So young and so untender!'" she interjected, with a rippling
laugh. "Yet Cordelia was misjudged very wickedly, and traduced very
ungallantly, and so am I. And I bid you good-day, sir."

Her delicate laugh rings in my ears as I write. I think that sun
and clear skies and hills go far to make us cheerful and harmonious.
Somehow, I always remember her as she was that morning.

She was standing then on the brink of a new and beautiful experience, at
the threshold of an acknowledged love. And that is a remarkable time to
the young.

There was something thrilling about the exp