the musical vibrations of a woman's song. Seizing the rope that hung
idly from the windlass, he half climbed, half swung himself, to the
surface.

The voice was there; but the sudden transition to the dazzling level
before him at first blinded his eyes, so that he took in only by degrees
the unwonted spectacle of the singer,--a pretty girl, standing on tiptoe
on a bowlder not a dozen yards from him, utterly absorbed in tying a
gayly-striped neckerchief, evidently taken from her own plump throat, to
the halliards of a freshly-cut hickory-pole newly reared as a flag-staff
beside her. The hickory-pole, the halliards, the fluttering scarf,
the young lady herself, were all glaring innovations on the familiar
landscape; but Rand, with his hand still on the rope, silently and
demurely enjoyed it.

For the better understanding of the general reader, who does not live on
an isolated mountain, it may be observed that the young lady's position
on the rock exhibited some study of POSE, and a certain exaggeration of
attitude, that betrayed the habit of an audience; also that her voice
had an artificial accent that was not wholly unconscious, even in this
lofty solitude. Yet the very next moment, when she turned, and caught
Rand's eye fixed upon her, she started naturally, colored slightly,
uttered that feminine adjuration, "Good Lord! gracious! goodness me!"
which is seldom used in reference to its effect upon the hearer, and
skipped instantly from the bowlder to the ground. Here, however, she
alighted in a POSE, brought the right heel of her neatly-fitting left
boot closely into the hollowed side of her right instep, at the same
moment deftly caught her flying skirt, whipped it around her ankles,
and, slightly raising it behind, permitted the chaste display of an inch
or two of frilled white petticoat. The most irreverent critic of the sex