anence consoles you for the presence of most improvements
by which you enjoy Niagara; the suspension bridges for their part being
saved from offensiveness by their beauty and unreality.

Ascending, none of the party spoke; Isabel and the other matron blanched
in each other's faces; their husbands maintained a stolid resignation.
When they stepped out of their trap into the waiting room at the top,
"What I like about these little adventures," said Mr. Richard to Basil,
abruptly, "is getting safely out of them. Good-morning, sir." He bowed
slightly to Isabel, who returned his politeness, and exchanged faint
nods, or glances, with the ladies. They got into their separate
carriages, and at that safe distance made each other more decided
obeisances.

"Well," observed Basil, "I suppose we're introduced now. We shall be
meeting them from time to time throughout our journey. You know how the
same faces and the same trunks used to keep turning up in our travels on
the other side. Once meet people in travelling, and you can't get rid of
them."

"Yes," said Isabel, as if continuing his train of thought, "I'm glad
we're going to-day."

"O dearest!"

"Truly. When we first arrived I felt only the loveliness of the place.
It seemed more familiar, too, then; but ever since, it's been growing
stranger and dreadfuller. Somehow it's begun to pervade me and possess
me in a very uncomfortable way; I'm tossed upon rapids, and flung from
cataract brinks, and dizzied in whirlpools; I'm no longer yours, Basil;
I'm most unhappily married to Niagara. Fly with me, save me from my
awful lord!"

She lightly burlesqued the woes of a prima donna, with clasped hands and
uplifted eyes.

"That'll do very well," Basil commented, "and it implies a reality that
can't be quite definitely spoken. We come to Niagara in the patronizing
spirit in which we approach everything nowadays, and for a few hours we
have it our own way, and pay our little tributes of admiration with
as much complacency as we feel in acknowledging the existence of the
Supreme Being. But after a while we are aware of some potent influence
undermining our self-satisfaction; we begin to conjecture that the great
cataract does not exist by virtue of our approval, and to feel that
it will not cease when we go away. The second day makes us its abject
slaves, and on the third we want to fly from it in terror. I believe
some people stay for weeks, however, and hordes of them have written