What occurred at the parting between the artist and the little Lamont at Bar Harbor I never knew. There was that good comradeship between the two, that frank enjoyment of each other's society, without any sentimental nonsense, so often seen between two young people in America, which may end in a friendship of a summer, or extend to the cordial esteem of a lifetime, or result in marriage. I always liked the girl; she had such a sunny temper, such a flow of originality in her mental attitude towards people and things without being a wit or a critic, and so much piquancy in all her little ways. She would take to matrimony, I should say, like a duck to water, with unruffled plumage, but as a wife she would never be commonplace, or anything but engaging, and, as the saying is, she could make almost any man happy. And, if unmarried, what a delightful sister-in-law she would be, especially a deceased wife's sister!
I never imagined that she was capable of a great passion, as was Irene Benson, who under a serene exterior was moved by tides of deep feeling, subject to moods, and full of aspirations and longings which she herself only dimly knew the meaning of. With Irene marriage would be either supreme happiness or extreme wretchedness, no half-way acceptance of a conventional life. With such a woman life is a failure, either tragic or pathetic, without a great passion given and returned. It is fortunate, considering the chances that make unions in society, that for most men and women the “grand passion” is neither necessary nor possible. I did not share King's prejudice against Mr. Meigs. He seemed to me, as the world goes, a 'bon parti,' cultivated by travel and reading, well-bred, entertaining, amiable, possessed of an ample fortune, the ideal husband in the eyes of a prudent mother. But I used to think that if Irene, attracted by his many admirable qualities, should become his wife, and that if afterwards the Prince should appear and waken the slumbering woman's heart in her, what a tragedy would ensue. I can imagine their placid existence if the Prince should not appear, and I can well believe that Irene and Stanhope would have many a tumultuous passage in the passionate symphony of their lives. But, great heavens, is the ideal marriage a Holland!
If Marion had shed any tears overnight, say on account of a little lonesomeness because her friend was speeding away from her southward, there were no traces of them when she met her uncle at the breakfast-table, as bright and chatty as usual, and in as high spirits as one can maintain with the Rodick coffee.
What a world of shifting scenes it is! Forbes had picked up his traps and gone off with his unreasonable companion like a soldier. The day after, when he looked out of the window of his sleeping-compartment at half-past four, he saw the red sky of morning, and against it the spires of Philadelphia.
At ten o'clock the two friends were breakfasting comfortably in the car, and running along down the Cumberland Valley. What a contrast was this rich country, warm with color and suggestive of abundance, to the pale and scrimped coast land of Maine denuded of its trees! By afternoon they were far down the east valley of the Shenandoah, between the Blue Ridge and the Massanutten range, in a country broken, picturesque, fertile, so attractive that they wondered there were so few villages on the route, and only now and then a cheap shanty in sight; and crossing the divide to the waters of the James, at sundown, in the midst of a splendid effect of mountains and clouds in a thunderstorm, they came to Natural Bridge station, where a coach awaited them.
This was old ground to King, who had been telling the artist that the two natural objects east of the Rocky Mountains that he thought entitled to the epithet “sublime” were Niagara Falls and the Natural Bridge; and as for scenery, he did not know of any more noble and refined than this region of the Blue Ridge. Take away the Bridge altogether, which is a mere freak, and the place would still possess, he said, a charm unique. Since the enlargement of hotel facilities and the conversion of this princely domain into a grand park, it has become a favorite summer resort. The gorge of the Bridge is a botanical storehouse, greater variety of evergreens cannot be found together anywhere else in the country, and the hills are still clad with stately forests. In opening drives, and cutting roads and vistas to give views, the proprietor has shown a skill and taste in dealing with natural resources, both in regard to form and the development of contrasts of color in foliage, which are rare in landscape gardening on this side of the Atlantic. Here is the highest part of the Blue Ridge, and from the gentle summit of Mount Jefferson the spectator has in view a hundred miles of this remarkable range, this ribbed mountain structure, which always wears a mantle of beauty, changeable purple and violet.
After supper there was an illumination of the cascade, and the ancient gnarled arbor-vita: trees that lean over it-perhaps the largest known specimens of this species-of the gorge and the Bridge. Nature is apt to be belittled by this sort of display, but the noble dignity of the vast arch of stone was superior to this trifling, and even had a sort of mystery added to its imposing grandeur. It is true that the flaming bonfires and the colored lights and the tiny figures of men and women standing in the gorge within the depth of the arch made the scene theatrical, but it was strange and weird and awful, like the fantasy of a Walpurgis' Night or a midnight revel in Faust.
The presence of the colored brother in force distinguished this from provincial resorts at the North, even those that employ this color as servants.
