her down the long corridor to her chamber.  After all, it is a kindly, unselfish world, full of tenderness for women, and especially for invalid women who are pretty.  There was all day long a competition of dudes and elderly widowers and bachelors to wait on her.  One thought she needed a little more wheeling; another volunteered to bring her a glass of water; there was always some one to pick up her fan, to recover her handkerchief (why is it that the fans and handkerchiefs of ugly women seldom go astray?), to fetch her shawl—­was there anything they could do?  The charming little heiress accepted all the attentions with most engaging sweetness.  Say what you will, men have good hearts.

Yes, they were going to Newport.  King and Forbes, who had not had a Fourth of July for some time, wanted to see what it was like at Newport.  Mr. De Long would like their company.  But before they went the artist must make one more trial at a sketch-must get the local color.  It was a large party that went one morning to see it done under the famous ledge of rocks on the Red Path.  It is a fascinating spot, with its coolness, sense of seclusion, mosses, wild flowers, and ferns.  In a small grotto under the frowning wall of the precipice is said to be a spring, but it is difficult to find, and lovers need to go a great many times in search of it.  People not in love can sometimes find a damp place in the sand.  The question was where Miss Lamont should pose.  Should she nestle under the great ledge, or sit on a projecting rock with her figure against the sky?  The artist could not satisfy himself, and the girl, always adventurous, kept shifting her position, climbing about on the jutting ledge, until she stood at last on the top of the precipice, which was some thirty or forty feet high.  Against the top leaned a dead balsam, just as some tempest had cast it, its dead branches bleached and scraggy.  Down this impossible ladder the girl announced her intention of coming.  “No, no,” shouted a chorus of voices; “go round; it’s unsafe; the limbs will break; you can’t get through them; you’ll break your neck.”  The girl stood calculating the possibility.  The more difficult the feat seemed, the more she longed to try it.

“For Heaven’s sake don’t try it, Miss Lamont,” cried the artist.

“But I want to.  I think I must.  You can sketch me in the act.  It will be something new.”

And before any one could interpose, the resolute girl caught hold of the balsam and swung off.  A boy or a squirrel would have made nothing of the feat.  But for a young lady in long skirts to make her way down that balsam, squirming about and through the stubs and dead limbs, testing each one before she trusted her weight to it, was another affair.  It needed a very cool head and the skill of a gymnast.  To transfer her hold from one limb to another, and work downward, keeping her skirts neatly gathered about her feet, was an achievement that the spectators