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 to the call of the future--it is