“What does this mean?” she asks, as if _I_ were accountable for the vagaries of a young man in love. “Can it be possible that Sylvia has discarded Mr. Lanier?” “I am afraid she has,” I answer. “He would hardly be likely to go away unless something of the kind had occurred.” “Good heavens!” says Aunt Markham. For a minute she can say no more than that, her feelings being too deep for utterance. Then she shakes her head in wrathful indignation. “The misguided girl!” she says. “I give her up! I will have nothing more to do with her affairs! She will never have a better offer—never! And to refuse it—for what?” She asks the question with tragic effect, but I am not provided with an answer; so I only shake _my_ head, and, since some one comes in at the moment, further conversation is impossible. Mr. Lanier adheres to his resolution, and Mrs. Cardigan has the pleasure of carrying him off in her train the next morning. It is a pleasure much lessened, however, by the consciousness that he is a rejected suitor, and that everybody in the little world which she leaves behind is aware of the fact. She shrugs her shoulders aside when she bids me good-by. “I suppose I shall have to play consoler,” she says. “It is not at all in my line. Can you suggest any appropriate form of consolation?” “I have no doubt you will soon find one,” I answer—and so we part. The last I see of Mr. Lanier he is pensively pulling the ends of his mustache, and gazing down at his boots. Perhaps he is reflecting on the mountain-sides up which he has toiled, the end whereof is weariness and disappointment. A few days later we find it necessary to leave this dwelling in the sky. There comes a morning when the carriages and horses stand before the door, when the trunks and boxes, the grasses and ferns, the wraps and umbrellas, are brought out, when hands are shaken and last words uttered, when we bid a cordial farewell to our kind hosts, and roll away. We pause on the Head for a view of the wonderful prospect, but a gray mist is shrouding it—a mist which later in the day will lift with soft and beautiful effect, and which wavers to and fro, now revealing the sea of dark-green foliage below, and the massive outlines of the neighboring mountains, then capriciously closing over them again; but we cannot wait for it to disperse. “After all, perhaps it is better so,” says Sylvia. “Nature wears a veil in order that her loveliness may not make it too hard for us to go.” We accept this explanation and return to the carriages. Before we have gone halfway down the mountain, all signs of mist have vanished, and the sun is lighting up the depths of the woods with streams of gold. The drive to Buck Forest is delightful, and when we reach the latter place we find Charley and Rupert, who have not troubled themselves to return to Cæsar’s Head, ready to join us.