near, appeared in constantly increasing numbers and in greater variety,
with not only the trepidation of going upon them, but also with the
electrical excitement people feel before a tempest.

The breast of the black cloud was now zigzagged from moment to moment by
lightning, and claps of deafening thunder broke from it. At last the long
endurance of the day was spent, and out of its convulsion burst floods of
rain, again and again sweeping the promenade-deck where the people sat,
and driving them disconsolate into the saloon. The air was darkened as by
night, and with many regrets for the vanishing prospect, mingled with a
sense of relief from the heat, our friends felt the boat tremble away
from her moorings and set forth upon her trip.

"Ah! if we had only taken the day boat!" moaned Isabel. "Now, we shall
see nothing of the river landscape, and we shall never be able to put
ourselves down when we long for Europe, by declaring that the scenery of
the Hudson is much finer than that of the Rhine."

Yet they resolved, this indomitably good-natured couple, that they would
be just even to the elements, which had by no means been generous to
them; and they owned that if so noble a storm had celebrated their
departure upon some storied river from some more romantic port than New
York, they would have thought it an admirable thing. Even whilst they
contented themselves, the storm passed, and left a veiled and humid sky
overhead, that gave a charming softness to the scene on which their eyes
fell when they came out of the saloon again, and took their places with a
largely increased companionship on the deck.

They had already reached that part of the river where the uplands begin,
and their course was between stately walls of rocky steepness, or wooded