An Artist in Crime

by Rodrigues Ottolengui

"The moonlight shedding a beautiful ray over the lake."

"Exactly," said Dora, laughing heartily. "That is just the funny mistake I thought you would make. That is not a lake at all. It is mist, or clouds rather. In the morning if I had not told you, you would have been astonished to find that your lake is all trees and meadows. To begin, then; about four o'clock it began to cloud up. That was very interesting. The sun was shining brightly here, but we could see that it was raining hard over in the direction of Lancaster. Slowly it began to come toward us. Some of the boys made wagers as to how soon it would rain here. Then one of the proprietors came out, and surprised us all by saying that it would probably rain over on the Presidential Range before it did here. This seemed extraordinary to us, you know, because why should it skip right over us and go to the big mountains?"

"Well, did it? It does seem impossible."

"That is exactly what occurred. You see, it is like this: Whenever a storm comes from Lancaster way, the clouds when they get here are divided by the Pliny Range, and pass on either side, leaving us dry. Then they strike against the sides of the Presidential Range, and roll back into our valley. It was a curious sight, I assure you, to see the clouds flying in exactly opposite directions."

"Well, but after all, there could not have been any great beauty in the rain. It must have blotted out all the view."

"Yes, but think how odd it was to find all these tremendous peaks suddenly gone. Not a mountain in sight in any direction. But then, the thunder. Oh! that was grand. The way it rolls about and reverberates gives one a good idea of a great battle. There was something afterwards that carried out this similarity, too, which I wish I could describe. It was after the storm had passed and the bright-setting sun shone forth. Try to see the picture. Imagine yourself sitting just where I am now, and looking toward the Presidential Range, the sun setting red behind us. Mount Washington had shaken the clouds from his head, and was encircled by a gorgeous halo, in the form of a brilliant double rainbow. One end of it seemed to come up right out of the valley there, whilst the other disappeared behind Starr King Mountain. The flying clouds, still black and heavy, whirled swiftly along, hanging low, and, with the sun approaching the horizon, made shifting shadows across the base of Mount Washington, whilst between the rifts the red rays of the sun striking different parts made beauteous timings among the green and the brown of trees and rock. Oh, if an artist could only have seen that. But then it would have been useless, for the hand of man could not paint such grandeur. It was in the foreground that the resemblance to the battle-field was to be seen again. Every here and there stray bits of clouds disentangled themselves from the treetops and rose up smoke-like till one could imagine them to be from thousands of camp-fires. Oh! it was simply wonderful."

"It was indeed," said Mr. Thauret; "and your description brings it all back again to me."

"Then the beautiful long twilight," Dora continued, almost unheeding, "that was lovely. Slowly these stray bits of mist met and joined others, till as the darkness came and the moon brightened, that beautiful sheet of water, for after all your lake is real water, accumulated, and there it is. At least you can enjoy that."

He did. But what he enjoyed more was the simple happiness of being with her. After a short time, however, he was deprived of that, for Mrs. Remsen claimed his attention, and took him up to the ball-room to introduce him to some of the many young women who were dancing with each other and with boys of fourteen for want of better partners.

If Mr. Thauret annoyed Mr. Randolph by being at this resort, the former gentleman was none the more pleased at his arrival. Being left alone with Dora, and construing her present mood to be one favorable to his wooing, he determined to speak to her before the other man might find a chance. Moving his chair nearer hers, he began, getting to his subject without much circumlocution.