beying Jerome's voice, who said in the quietest of
tones, 'Go on, Rhesus,' gave one wild plunge and dashed ahead, leaving
Mell with a stifled feeling, as if she was buried alive under twenty
feet of volcanic ashes.

But what did it mean--his passing her without a sign of recognition?
Jerome might be of a truant disposition, of unstable fancy, and
superior in his own strength to most ordinary rules, but he couldn't
help knowing her face to face. There was a bare possibility that he
had not really seen her; his sight, come to think of it, was none of
the best, or, at least, he habitually wore an interesting little
_pince-nez_ dangling from his button-hole, and sometimes, though not
often, stuck it across the bridge of his well-shaped nose with telling
effect.

With such arguments, and much wanting to be convinced, Mell recovered
her equipoise to some extent, managing to hear about half Miss Josey
was saying, and to answer only once or twice very wildly at random.
Arrived at their destination, she assisted her patroness in
receiving and arranging the baskets; this important contingent of
the day's proceedings being satisfactorily disposed of, they
followed the example of the crowd at large and strolled about in
search of some amusement. A more delightful location for a day's
outing it would be hard to find, the world over. On three sides of
the principal grove, stretched an immense plateau, smooth as a
flower-garden, and level as a plumb line, and on the fourth side a
sudden, bold declivity, just as if a giant hand had pulled the
clustering hills apart and left them wide asunder, laying bare the
heart of a magnificent ravine. In this wild gorge were stupendous
cliffs and brinks, shady shelves o'erhanging secluded and romantic
nooks, enormous rocks holding plentiful treasures in moss and
lichen, singularly constructed mounds, probably the remaining
deposit of a prehistoric race, wild flowers in variety, wild scenery
in perfection, and a beautiful stream of running water, wherein
disported finny tribes in abundance. Nothing in the highest art of
gardenesque could produce such results as this. A mere ramble amid
such scenes of diverse picturesqueness--nature's wear and tear in
moods of passion--amounts to a study of geological architecture under
favoring conditions.

Mell loved nature, but not as she loved Jerome. Her brains were
crammed with wild speculations in regard to him, which accounts for
the fact that she had no