up the height, but
at the foot of it, where stood the battery that forbade his juncture
with Arnold at Prescott Gate.

A certain wildness yet possesses the spot: the front of the crag, topped
by the high citadel-wall, is so grim, and the few tough evergreens that
cling to its clefts are torn and twisted by the winter blasts, and the
houses are decrepit with age, showing here and there the scars of the
frequent fires that sweep the Lower Town.

It was quite useless: neither the memories of the place nor their
setting were sufficient to engage the wayward thoughts of these
curiously assorted pilgrims; and the colonel, after some attempts to
bring the matter home to himself and the others, was obliged to abandon
Mr. Arbuton to his tender reveries of Kitty, and Kitty to her puzzling
over the change in Mr. Arbuton. His complaisance made her uncomfortable
and shy of him, it was so strange; it gave her a little shiver, as if he
were behaving undignifiedly.

"Well, Kitty," said the colonel, "I reckon Uncle Jack would have made
more out of this than we've done. He'd have had their geology out of
these rocks, any way."

IX.

MR. ARBUTON'S INFATUATION.

Kitty went as usual to Mrs. Ellison's room after her walk, but she
lapsed into a deep abstraction as she sat down beside the sofa.

"What are you smiling at?" asked Mrs. Ellison, after briefly supporting
her abstraction.

"Was I smiling?" asked Kitty, beginning to laugh. "I didn't know it."

"What _has_ happened so very funny?"

"Why, I don't know whether it's so very funny or not. I believe it isn't
funny at all."

"Then what makes you laugh?"

"I don't know. Was I--"

"Now _don't_ ask me if you were laughing, Kitty. It's a little too much.
You can talk or not, as you choose; but I don't like to be turned into
ridicule."

"O Fanny, how can you? I was thinking about something very different.
But I don't see how I can tell you, without putting Mr. Arbuton in a
ludicrous light, and it isn't quite fair."

"You're very careful of him, all at once," said Mrs. Ellison. "You
didn't seem disposed to spare him yesterday so much. I don't understand
this sudden conversion."

Kitty responded with a fit of outrageous laughter. "Now I see I must
tell you," she said, and rapidly recounted Mr. Arbuton's adventure.

"Why, I never knew anything so cool and brave, Fanny, and I admired him
more than ever I did; but then I couldn't help seeing the other side of
it, you k