The closing hours of the long summer afternoon can be spent in no pleasanter place than by the water's side. And after tea I like to take my little group of Adelers out from the hot streets over the grassy way which leads to the river shore, and to find a comfortable loitering-place upon the Battery. That spot is adorned with a long row of rugged old trees whose trunks are gashed and scarred by the penknives of idlers. Their branches interlock overhead and form one great mass of tender green foliage, here sweeping down almost to the earth, and there hanging far out over the water, trembling and rustling in the breeze. Beneath, there is a succession of hewn logs, suggesting the existence of some sort of a wharf in the remote past, but now serving nicely for seats for those who come here to spend a quiet hour. Around there is a sod which grows lush and verdant, excepting where the tread of many feet has worn a pathway backward to the village. In front is as lovely a scene as any the eye can rest upon in this portion of the world. Below us the rising and the ebbing tides hurl the tiny ripples upon the pebbly beach, and the perpetual wash of the waves makes that gentle and constant music which is among the most grateful of the sounds of nature. Away to the southward sweeps the Delaware shore line in a mighty curve which gives the river here the breadth and magnificence of a great lake, and at the end of the chord of the arc the steeples and the masts at Delaware City rise in indistinct outline from the waves. To the left, farther in the distance, old Fort Delaware lifts its battlements above the surface of the stream. And see! A puff of white smoke rises close by the flag-staff. And now a dull thud comes with softened cadence across the wide interval. It is the sunset gun. Far, far beyond, a sail glimmers with rosy light caught from the brilliant hues of the clouds which make the western heavens glorious with their crimson drapery; and while here as we gaze straight out through the bay there is naught in the perspective but water and sky, to the right the low-lying land below the island fortress seems, somehow, to be queerly suspended between river and heaven, until as it recedes it grows more and more shadowy, and at last melts away into the mist that creeps in from the ocean. It is pure happiness to sit here beneath the trees and to look upon the scene while the cool air pours in from the water and lifts into the upper atmosphere the oppressive heat that has mantled the earth during the day. [Illustration: THE BATTERY]