cial adventures of the heroine of a love story, and taking sides with
her against the world, but as to the actual world itself, her practical
philosophy taught her that it was much better always, even at the cost
of a little heartache in youth, to go with the stream than against it.

The lake at Saratoga is the most picturesque feature of the region, and
would alone make the fortune of any other watering-place. It is always
a surprise to the stranger, who has bowled along the broad drive of five
miles through a pleasing but not striking landscape, to come suddenly,
when he alights at the hotel, upon what seems to be a "fault," a sunken
valley, and to look down a precipitous, grassy, tree-planted slope
upon a lake sparkling at the bottom and reflecting the enclosing
steep shores. It is like an aqua-marine gem countersunk in the green
landscape. Many an hour had Irene and Stanhope passed in dreamy
contemplation of it. They had sailed down the lake in the little
steamer, they had whimsically speculated about this and that couple who
took their ices or juleps under the trees or on the piazza of the hotel,
and the spot had for them a thousand tender associations. It was here
that Stanhope had told her very fully the uneventful story of his
life, and it was here that she had grown into full sympathy with his
aspirations for the future.

It was of all this that Irene thought as she sat talking that day with
Penelope on a bench at the foot of the hill by the steamboat landing. It
was this very future that the woman of the world was using to raise in
the mind of Irene a morbid sense of her duty. Skillfully with this was
insinuated the notion of the false and contemptible social pride
and exclusiveness of Stanhope's relations, which Mrs. Bartlett Glow
represented as implacable while she condemned it as absurd. There was
not a word of opposition to the union of Irene and Stanhope: Penelope
was not such a bungler as to make that mistake. It was not her cue to
definitely suggest a sacrifice for the welfare of her cousin. If she let
Irene perceive that she admired the courage in her that could face all
these adverse social conditions that were conjured up before her, Irene
could never say that Penelope had expressed anything of the sort. Her
manner was affectionate, almost caressing; she declared that she felt
a sisterly interest in her. This was genuine enough. I am not sure that
Mrs. Bartlett Glow did not sometimes waver in her pur