A quick flush springs to her face. She is hurt and surprised, but few women are not able to hold their own when placed on the defensive like this. The eyes which glance up at him have a gleam in their soft depths. “Yes, it is mine,” she answers quietly. “Thank you for restoring it.” Then she takes the ribbon, fastens it carelessly on the side of her “bonny-brown hair,” and turns to Mr. Lanier with a smile. “Is it the worse for passing a night on Castle Rock?” she asks. “Not when _you_ wear it,” he answers, a flash of brightness lighting up his face. After this, a return of hope plainly comes to this gentleman, and once more he is Sylvia’s loyal slave. I do not wish to say that she absolutely encourages him, but with Charley on one side to enrage, and Mrs. Cardigan on the other to disappoint, the temptation to do so is strong—and not altogether resisted. The next day we make an expedition to the other falls, and find their beauty worthy of all praise. Where the High Fall leaps in splendor through the dark-green woods that echo its reverberating roar, and where the Triple Falls sweep in white cascades over successive ledges of rock, one feels that “their colors and their forms” are indeed “An appetite—a feeling and a love That has no need of a remoter charm.” Along all its short course the Little River is a marvel of beauty, and the day cannot be far distant when tourists will seek its picturesque banks as they now seek better-known places. Indeed, nothing save its remoteness from railroads—remoteness that would gladden Mr. Ruskin’s soul, but which has altogether a contrary effect on the souls of the inhabitants of the country—can account for the fact that this region is now so little frequented. To artists it offers a field wild, fresh, infinitely varied, and in some aspects scarcely less grand than that Western scenery which many of them cross a continent to study; while to sportsmen its attractions are not less great. The speckled trout fill its streams, deer still abound in the coverts of its forests, and he who chooses to seek the wild fastnesses of the Black and the Balsam Mountains may carry back bear-skins and bear-stories in memory of his adventures. We spend several days at Buck Forest, and there are other hunts, of which the result is different from those two already recorded. No less than three deer “die the death” out in the dewy haunts of the greenwood—two beautiful does and a fine stag. Eric, who shot the last, presents its antlers to Mrs. Cardigan, in fulfillment of his promise. Sylvia, however, does not obtain the fawn for which she expressed a desire. But for that unlucky hour at the Bridal-Veil Fall, she might perhaps obtain it; but Charley, who alone is likely to take any degree of trouble to gratify her, has since then stood resolutely on his dignity, and informs me confidentially that she has no heart—only a large amount of vanity, which he has sternly determined to gratify no longer.