There were hardly any passengers to-day; only three in fact: two women and a man. All three were young enough to accomplish with enjoyment a great deal of walking up the long mountain. They had laughed and talked together, though of very nothings as became just-met folk. The birds and the bees and butterflies, the flowers, the air, and the view had been the chief subjects of comment. Now, back in the stage for the descent, they held in their hands flowers and ferns and branches covered with ripe huckleberries which they detached from the stems, lifted to their lips and ate. The two women were friends, coming, so they now explained to their fellow-traveller, from a distance to this little out-of-the-way place. The brother of one, it seemed, was a great fisherman and came often. He was not here this year; he was travelling in Palestine; but he had advised his sister, who was a little broken down and wanted a quiet place to work in, to come here. She said, jubilantly, that if the air was always going to be like this she was glad she had come. It had seemed funny, at first, to think of coming South for the summer--though her friend was half-Southern and didn't mind. "I'm wondering," said the fellow-traveller, with an effect of gallantry, "what in the world the work can be! The very latest thing, I suppose, in fancy-work--or perhaps you do pastels?" Elizabeth Eden looked at him with her very candid grey eyes. "I'm doing a book of statistics--women and children in industry." "And I," said the other, Marie Caton, "I teach English to immigrant girls. We are both Settlement workers." Laydon prided himself on his ability quickly to shift sail. "Oh!" he said; "a Settlement! That's an idea that hasn't got down to us yet. We are rather lazy, I suppose.--I was reading, though, an excellent article upon Settlements in one of the current magazines only the other day. Ladies, especially, seem to be going in for that kind of work;--of course, it is, when you think of it, only an extension of their historic function as 'loaf-giver.' Charity and Woman--they're almost synonymous." "That's a magnificent compliment--or meant to be!" said Marie Caton. Her eyes were dancing. "I wonder what you'd say if I said that charity--charity in your sense--is one of woman's worst weaknesses? Thank God Settlements, bad as they are, aren't charity!" "Look at the view, Marie," said Elizabeth. "And, oh! feel that wind! Isn't it divine?" "Winds blow from all four points at oncet up here," said the driver. "Ain't many people at the New Springs this summer. Fish don't bite, or everybody's gone to the World's Fair, or something or other! Ain't more'n forty people, countin' children." "What kind of people are they? Do the women fish, too?"