ft and beautiful; so
that the spirit perturbed by the spectacle of the other cliff is calmed
and assuaged by the serene grandeur of this.

There have been, to be sure, some human agencies at work even under the
shadow of Cape Eternity to restore the spirit to self-possession, and
perhaps none turns from it wholly dismayed. Kitty, at any rate, took
heart from some works of art which the cliff wall displayed near the
water's edge. One of these was a lively fresco portrait of
Lieutenant-General Sherman, with the insignia of his rank, and the other
was an even more striking effigy of General O'Neil, of the Armies of the
Irish Republic, wearing a threatening aspect, and designed in a bold
conceit of his presence there as conqueror of Canada in the year 1875.
Mr. Arbuton was inclined to resent these intrusions upon the sublimity
of nature, and he could not conceive, without disadvantage to them, how
Miss Ellison and the colonel should accept them so cheerfully as part of
the pleasure of the whole. As he listened blankly to their exchange of
jests he found himself awfully beset by a temptation which one of the
boat's crew placed before the passengers. This was a bucket full of
pebbles of inviting size; and the man said, "Now, see which can hit the
cliff. It's farther than any of you can throw, though it looks so near."

The passengers cast themselves upon the store of missiles, Colonel
Ellison most actively among them. None struck the cliff, and suddenly
Mr. Arbuton felt a blind, stupid, irresistible longing to try his
chance. The spirit of his college days, of his boating and ball-playing
youth, came upon him. He picked up a pebble, while Kitty opened her eyes
in a stare of dumb surprise. Then he wheeled and threw it, and as it
struck against the cliff with a shock that seemed to have broken all the
windows on the Back Bay, he exulted in a sense of freedom the havoc
caused him. It was as if for an instant he had rent away the ties of
custom, thrown off the bonds of social allegiance, broken down and
trampled upon the conventions which his whole life long he had held so
dear and respectable. In that moment of frenzy he feared himself capable
of shaking hands with the shabby Englishman in the Glengarry cap, or of
asking the whole admiring company of passengers down to the bar. A cry
of applause had broken from them at his achievement, and he had for the
first time tasted the sweets of popular favor. Of course a revulsion
must