l. For this reason, because it is some two or three hundred feet
lower than Green Mountain, and includes that scarred eminence in its
view, it is the most picturesque and pleasing elevation on the island.
It also has the recommendation of being nearer to the sea than its
sister mountain. On the south side, by a long slope, it comes nearly to
the water, and the longing that the visitor to Bar Harbor has to see the
ocean is moderately gratified. The prospect is at once noble and poetic.

Mrs. Pendragon informed Mr. King that he and Miss Lamont and Mr. Forbes
were included in the watermelon party that was to start that afternoon
at five o'clock. The plan was for the party to go in buckboards to Eagle
Lake, cross that in the steamer, scramble on foot over the "carry" to
Jordan Pond, take row-boats to the foot of that, and find at a farmhouse
there the watermelons and other refreshments, which would be sent by the
shorter road, and then all return by moonlight in the buckboards.

This plan was carried out. Mrs. Cortlandt, Mrs. Pendragon, and Mrs.
Simpkins were to go as chaperons, and Mr. Meigs had been invited by Mrs.
Cortlandt, King learned to his disgust, also to act as a chaperon. All
the proprieties are observed at Bar Harbor. Half a dozen long buckboards
were loaded with their merry freight. At the last Mrs. Pendragon pleaded
a headache, and could not go. Mr. King was wandering about among the
buckboards to find an eligible seat. He was not put in good humor by
finding that Mr. Meigs had ensconced himself beside Irene, and he was
about crowding in with the Ashley girls--not a bad fate--when word was
passed down the line from Mrs. Cortlandt, who was the autocrat of the
expedition, that Mr. Meigs was to come back and take a seat with Mrs.
Simpkins in the buckboard with the watermelons. She could not walk
around the "carry"; she must go by the direct road, and of course she
couldn't go alone. There was no help for it, and Mr. Meigs, looking as
cheerful as an undertaker in a healthy season, got down from his seat
and trudged back. Thus two chaperons were disposed of at a stroke, and
the young men all said that they hated to assume so much responsibility.
Mr. King didn't need prompting in this emergency; the wagons were
already moving, and before Irene knew exactly what had happened, Mr.
King was begging her pardon for the change, and seating himself beside
her. And he was thinking, "What a confoundedly clever woman Mrs.
Cor