ous and screaming
a little, and some of the men quite as cowardly but much more ashamed to
acknowledge the feeling. The novelty of the picture was materially added
to, meanwhile, by the fact that nearly every male passenger was loaded
like a pack-horse with baggage, and the ladies with shawls, parasols and
bundles,--and that all, when they reached the neck of land at the end of
the bridge, squatted down miscellaneously on the dry grass and among the
wood and timber, like so many Arabs making a noon encampment.

"Oh, isn't this jolly!" exclaimed Joe Harris, as Tom Leslie was leading
her over the line of plank, when they were about half way across, and
when, from the instability of a part of the structure, there seemed a
fair prospect of taking a duck in the river.

"Bravo, little girl!" said Tom Leslie, in reply. "That is the way to
take detention and disappointment in travelling; and after that
expression I would bet on you for ascending Mont Blanc or living on a
raft." Such little events, to close observers, sometimes furnish keys to
the capabilities of whole characters.

"You compliment me," said the young girl, "but there is really nothing
to compliment me about. I am not enduring, but enjoying. Look
out!--there I go! No I don't!" as she partially lost her balance and
then recovered it. "Why we should have lost all this, but for the
accident; and probably nothing in our whole ride could have compensated
it."

"It is indeed a striking scene," said Leslie, his quick appreciation of
the beautiful actively brought into play, as they landed safely on the
sward at the end of the bridge. "See the dusky shadows creeping over the
Highlands, yonder, and their still duskier shadows in the still water.
See the orange and pink of the sunset sky, reaching half way to the
zenith, and that quarter moon dividing the sunset colors from the dark
blue beyond, like a sentinel. Then see that steamboat creeping close in
under the shadow of the land, as if she was trying to steal by
unobserved. And then yonder, that smelting furnace perched on one of the
hills, throwing out its gleams of molten metal, with their glowing
reflection in the little creek. And last, not least, Peekskill lying
across the cove yonder, with its Independence flags still flying, those
untimely rockets going up, boats with singing parties putting off from
the shore, and the music of the band coming over the water just softly
enough to make an undertone for the fee