oice was low, and she spoke
slowly. "You couldn't help it. We can't any of us help it. We cannot
make the world over, you know." And she looked up at him with a faint
little smile.

"But you didn't understand. I didn't care for any of those people. It
was just an accident. Won't you believe me? I do not ask much. But I
cannot have you think I'm a coward."

"I never did, Mr. King. Perhaps you do not see what society is as I do.
People think they can face it when they cannot. I can't say what I mean,
and I think we'd better not talk about it."

The boat was landing; and the party streamed up into the woods, and with
jest and laughter and feigned anxiety about danger and assistance, picked
its way over the rough, stony path. It was such a scramble as young
ladies enjoy, especially if they are city bred, for it seems to them an
achievement of more magnitude than to the country lasses who see nothing
uncommon or heroic in following a cow-path. And the young men like it
because it brings out the trusting, dependent, clinging nature of girls.
King wished it had been five miles long instead of a mile and a half. It
gave him an opportunity to show his helpful, considerate spirit. It was
necessary to take her hand to help her over the bad spots, and either the
bad spots increased as they went on, or Irene was deceived about it. What
makes a path of this sort so perilous to a woman's heart? Is it because
it is an excuse for doing what she longs to do? Taking her hand recalled
the day on the rocks at Narragansett, and the nervous clutch of her
little fingers, when the footing failed, sent a delicious thrill through
her lover. King thought himself quite in love with Forbes--there was the
warmest affection between the two--but when he hauled the artist up a
Catskill cliff there wasn't the least of this sort of a thrill in the
grip of hands. Perhaps if women had the ballot in their hands all this
nervous fluid would disappear out of the world.

At Jordan Pond boats were waiting. It is a pretty fresh-water pond
between high sloping hills, and twin peaks at the north end give it even
picturesqueness. There are a good many trout in it--at least that is the
supposition, for the visitors very seldom get them out. When the boats
with their chattering passengers had pushed out into the lake and
accomplished a third of the voyage, they were met by a skiff containing
the faithful chaperons Mrs. Simpkins and Mr. Meigs. They hailed, but Mr.