difficult. And
the lookers-on were a good deal more excited than the girl. The artist
had his book ready, and when the little figure was half-way down,
clinging in a position at once artistic and painful, he began. "Work
fast," said the girl. "It's hard hanging on." But the pencil wouldn't
work. The artist made a lot of wild marks. He would have given the
world to sketch in that exquisite figure, but every time he cast his eye
upward the peril was so evident that his hand shook. It was no use. The
danger increased as she descended, and with it the excitement of the
spectators. All the young gentlemen declared they would catch her if she
fell, and some of them seemed to hope she might drop into their arms.
Swing off she certainly must when the lowest limb was reached. But that
was ten feet above the ground and the alighting-place was sharp rock and
broken bowlders. The artist kept up a pretense of drawing. He felt
every movement of her supple figure and the strain upon the slender arms,
but this could not be transferred to the book. It was nervous work. The
girl was evidently getting weary, but not losing her pluck. The young
fellows were very anxious that the artist should keep at his work; they
would catch her. There was a pause; the girl had come to the last limb;
she was warily meditating a slide or a leap; the young men were quite
ready to sacrifice themselves; but somehow, no one could tell exactly
how, the girl swung low, held herself suspended by her hands for an
instant, and then dropped into the right place--trust a woman for that;
and the artist, his face flushed, set her down upon the nearest flat
rock. Chorus from the party, "She is saved!"

"And my sketch is gone up again."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Forbes." The girl looked full of innocent regret. "But
when I was up there I had to come down that tree. I couldn't help it,
really."

IV

NEWPORT

On the Fourth of July, at five o'clock in the morning, the porters called
the sleepers out of their berths at Wickford Junction. Modern
civilization offers no such test to the temper and to personal appearance
as this early preparation to meet the inspection of society after a night
in the stuffy and luxuriously upholstered tombs of a sleeping-car. To get
into them at night one must sacrifice dignity; to get out of them in the
morning, clad for the day, gives the proprietors a hard rub. It is
wonderful, however, considering the twisting and scrambling in the berth