be free. But you will not
understand. Circumstances are so cruel, and if, Stanhope, you ever
should regret when it is too late! It would kill me. I want you to be
happy. And, Stanhope, promise me that, whatever happens, you will not
think ill of me."

Of course he promised, he declared that nothing could happen, he vowed,
and he protested against this ridiculous phantom in her mind. To a man,
used to straightforward cuts in love as in any other object of his
desire, this feminine exaggeration of conscientiousness is wholly
incomprehensible. How under heavens a woman could get a kink of duty in
her mind which involved the sacrifice of herself and her lover was past
his fathoming.

The morning after this conversation, the most of which the reader has
been spared, there was an excursion to Cooperstown. The early start of
the tally-ho coaches for this trip is one of the chief sensations of the
quiet village. The bustle to collect the laggards, the importance of the
conductors and drivers, the scramble up the ladders, the ruses to get
congenial seat-neighbors, the fine spirits of everybody evoked by the
fresh morning air, and the elevation on top of the coaches, give the
start an air of jolly adventure. Away they go, the big red-and-yellow
arks, swinging over the hills and along the well-watered valleys, past
the twin lakes to Otsego, over which hangs the romance of Cooper's tales,
where a steamer waits. This is one of the most charming of the little
lakes that dot the interior of New York; without bold shores or anything
sensational in its scenery, it is a poetic element in a refined and
lovely landscape. There are a few fishing-lodges and summer cottages on
its banks (one of them distinguished as "Sinners' Rest"), and a hotel or
two famous for dinners; but the traveler would be repaid if there were
nothing except the lovely village of Cooperstown embowered in maples at
the foot. The town rises gently from the lake, and is very picturesque
with its church spires and trees and handsome mansions; and nothing could
be prettier than the foreground, the gardens, the allees of willows, the
long boat wharves with hundreds of rowboats and sail-boats, and the exit
of the Susquehanna River, which here swirls away under drooping foliage,
and begins its long journey to the sea. The whole village has an air of
leisure and refinement. For our tourists the place was pervaded by the
spirit of the necromancer who has woven about it a spel