“The people here call that largest pool next the bank over yonder, bottomless,” says Charley. “Stuff!” says Eric. “But it is really forty or fifty feet deep by actual measurement.” “Not a nice place to go down in,” says Sylvia, with a slight shudder. “Yet how lovely!” Certainly the whole scene is lovely beyond all terms of praise or description. Limpid water, gray rocks, semi-tropical foliage—who can tire of these things in ever varied and picturesque combination? “What a place for a painter!” says Sylvia; “better than many wilder ones which we have seen. The Saluda Gorge, for instance, is far grander, but this is full of the most romantic beauty.” “Come higher,” says Charley, “and you will have a view of the upper falls.” We go above the cascade, which pours into the pools, and obtain a partial view of a higher and less accessible fall. Just here an enormous tree has been cut down, and forms a bridge across the stream. In the centre, immediately under the bridge, is a point of rock that the current does not cover, and to this Charley springs. “There is a capital view of the upper fall from here,” he says; “the only good view to be had.—Sylvia, do you think you could reach here?” No! Sylvia essays to do so, and finds that she cannot, the intervening water being too wide and too deep. “But I can come that far on the tree,” she says, turning to climb the bank. “If you do, you will surely fall!” Aunt Markham and I remonstrate. “No, you won’t, Sylvia!” cries Rupert, who has crossed. “It is very good walking if your head don’t swim.” “My head never swims,” asserts Sylvia, confidently. She advances out on the trunk as she speaks. It is certainly wide enough to afford good footing, but the farther end does not rest very firmly against the opposite bank, and the consequence is that it shakes as she walks. This, added to the fact of her elevation (six feet, at least) above the stream, with a sweeping fall on each side, and swift-rushing water underneath, makes her, as she afterward confesses, suddenly and unaccountably giddy. She stops, and Charley, seeing her change of color, springs into the water above which she has paused, and seizes the only thing within his reach—one of her feet! “Sit down!” he says, imperatively. “You’ll fall if you don’t!” She obeys instantly, dropping down on the log with a slight gasp. “I—don’t know what makes me so silly,” she says. “And _how_ am I to get back?” “Easily enough,” he answers. “Bend down and put your hands on my shoulders— that is it!” As soon as she bends within his reach he lifts her, staggering back a little under her weight—for it is only in novels that muscular heroes can bear substantial heroines as if they were feathers—but carries her safely through the water to the dry rock. There he deposits her, with a laugh. “Set that against the Bridal-Veil Fall!” he says. Sylvia on her part lifts her hand at once to her head. “My hat!” she says. “I’ve lost it!”