dinner. Flemming flushed with vexation to think he had lent himself to
the arrangement.

"I have spent parts of two summers at the Isles of Shoals," he said.

"Then you must have observed the singular changes that seem to take
place on the mainland, seen from Appledore. The mirage on the Rye and
Newcastle coasts--is it Newcastle?--sometimes does wonderful things.
Frequently you see great cities stretching along the beach, some of the
houses rising out of the water, as in Venice, only they are gloomy,
foggy cities, like London, and not like Venice. Another time you see
ships sailing by upside down; then it is a chain of hills, with peaks
and projections that melt away under your eyes, leaving only the flat
coast-line."

Flemming had seen all this, and seemed again to see it through the clear
medium of the young girl's words. He had witnessed similar optical
illusions in the deserts, also, which he described to her. Then he
remembered a curious trick of refracted light he had once seen in the
sunrise on Mount Washington, and suddenly he found himself asking Miss
Denham if she were acquainted with the interior of New Hampshire.
Flemming had put the interrogation without a shadow of design; he could
have bitten his tongue off an instant after.

Lynde, who had been discussing with Mrs. Denham the details of the next
day's journey, looked up quickly and sent Flemming a rapid scowl.

"I have never been inland," was Miss Denham's answer. "My acquaintance
with New Hampshire is limited to the Shoals and the beaches at Rye and
Hampton. In visiting the Alps first I have, I know, been very impolite