The most vivid impression, however, made upon the visitor in this walk was that of paint.  It seemed unreal that there could be so much paint in the world and so many swearing colors.  But it ceased to be a dream, and they were taken back into the hard, practical world, when, as they turned the corner, Irene pointed out her favorite sign: 

Silas Lapham, mineral paint. 
Branch Office.

The artist said, a couple of days after this morning, that he had enough of it.  “Of course,” he added, “it is a great pleasure to me to sit and talk with Mrs. Benson, while you and that pretty girl walk up and down the piazza all the evening; but I’m easily satisfied, and two evenings did for me.”

So that, much as Mr. King was charmed with Atlantic City, and much as he regretted not awaiting the arrival of the originals of the tintypes, he gave in to the restlessness of the artist for other scenes; but not before he had impressed Mrs. Benson with a notion of the delights of Newport in July.

III

THE CATSKILLS

The view of the Catskills from a certain hospitable mansion on the east side of the Hudson is better than any mew from those delectable hills.  The artist said so one morning late in June, and Mr. King agreed with him, as a matter of fact, but would have no philosophizing about it, as that anticipation is always better than realization; and when Mr. Forbes went on to say that climbing a mountain was a good deal like marriage —­the world was likely to look a little flat once that cerulean height was attained—­Mr. King only remarked that that was a low view to take of the subject, but he would confess that it was unreasonable to expect that any rational object could fulfill, or even approach, the promise held out by such an exquisite prospect as that before them.

The friends were standing where the Catskill hills lay before them in echelon towards the river, the ridges lapping over each other and receding in the distance, a gradation of lines most artistically drawn, still further refined by shades of violet, which always have the effect upon the contemplative mind of either religious exaltation or the kindling of a sentiment which is in the young akin to the emotion of love.  While the artist was making some memoranda of these outlines, and Mr. King was drawing I know not what auguries of hope from these purple heights, a young lady seated upon a rock near by—­a young lady just stepping over the border-line of womanhood—­had her eyes also fixed upon those dreamy distances, with that look we all know so well, betraying that shy expectancy of life which is unconfessed, that tendency to maidenly reverie which it were cruel to interpret literally.  At the moment she is more interesting than the Catskills—­the brown hair, the large eyes unconscious of anything but the most natural emotion, the shapely waist just beginning to respond