So we go down to where the rocks stand in their picturesque massiveness, with plumy ferns covering the ground at their base, and a world of graceful foliage drooping around. Having entered the quadrangle, we dismount again and are led to the western side of the Castle Rock. Here we pause and gaze at the height which we are expected to scale. Eighty-five feet above, the great mass towers sheer and bold, with broken escarpments here and there, and, higher up, a shelving side, scarcely affording foothold, one would say, for anything less active than a squirrel. We look at each other half-laughing, half-dismayed. “How are we ever to get to the top of that?” says Mrs. Cardigan. “Eric is there,” cries Sylvia. “See! he is fastening the rope to a tree that grows out of the top of the rock. If he went up without a rope, surely we can climb _with_ one.” “It is a great risk,” says Mr. Lanier, who has plainly no fancy for such a feat. “I beg you, ladies, not to attempt the ascent. It is rash—it is—” “Hallo!”—Charley’s smiling face looks at us over a ledge of the rock—“we are ready. Who comes first?” “I do!” answers Sylvia. She springs forward, unheeding the fact that Mr. Lanier grows almost pale in his eagerness to detain her. He absolutely catches her arm. “Pray listen to me,” he says. “Pray don’t go. If you were to fall, nothing could save you from a severe injury. Kenyon is not to be relied on. He risked your life once before—” She shakes off his hand impatiently. There is a flash in her eye as she glances at him. “Charley thinks more of my life than he does of his own,” she says. “He _never_ risked it. I never was in danger—not for a moment—when I was with him. Let me go!” He lets her go. As he falls back, biting his lip, I see a quick flush rise to Mrs. Cardigan’s dark cheek. Perhaps at that moment it occurs to her that many a heart—or at least many a fancy—is caught in the rebound, and that pique is the surest cure for a hopeless passion. She utters a low laugh as the discomfited gentleman returns to her side. “I see you don’t appreciate,” she says, “the _tendresse_ that exists between Miss Norwood and Mr. Kenyon—and that the best way to make a woman do a thing is to beg her _not_ to do it.” “Is it the best way with you?” he asks, turning with a glow—of resentment against Sylvia—in his eyes. “Not particularly so,” she answers lightly, “though of course I share somewhat the infirmities of my sex.” “And do you intend to climb that rock?” he says. “I am sure you will find it not only dangerous but very disagreeable.” “I don’t think I shall climb it,” she replies slowly. As she speaks, I see plainly that she longs to follow Sylvia, who is now standing by Charley’s side, far above our heads, while Eric instructs her how to hold the rope when he assists her up the sloping rock which still rises above them.