Yes, it is the cascade—filling all the stillness with its fairy-like murmur. Over rocks, across fallen trees, and through the dense growth of laurel that fringes all these watercourses, we make our way to the bank and go out on the rocks below the fall. The glen is only one of thousands equally beautiful; but, as we stand, with the sheet of spray and foam before us—a cascade that might be Undine herself—dense foliage on each side, towering mountains above, and an atmosphere of green, shadowy twilight— though we left the sun shining on the outside world, pervading every thing—we are enchanted by its loveliness. “It is like a miniature of Linville,” says Eric. “Fancy these walls of rock two thousand feet high, and this stream a river, and you have an idea of Linville Gorge.” “I wish I could go there,” says Sylvia. “Is it quite impossible for us to do so this summer, Eric?” “Quite impossible—according to our present plan of travel. Don’t you know that it is an important part of sight-seeing to know what must be left unseen?” “And this is Lovers’ Retreat!” says Rupert, standing on a mossy, slippery rock in the middle of the stream. “If I were a lover, it seems to me I should select a retreat that was not so damp—or so snaky.” “What do you know about the sentiments of lovers?” asks Charley. “Let me tell you that, when one is a victim of the tender passion, one does not consider snakes.” “Unless you see them,” says Eric. “And Rupert is right: this looks as if it might be one of their favorite retreats.” “I wish that the people who name places of this kind would consider some other class of the world’s population besides lovers,” says Sylvia. “They are the most interesting class, are they not?” asks Mr. Lanier. “On the contrary, I think they are the most uninteresting,” she answers, decidedly. “They are always selfish, absorbed in their own affairs—and silly!” “Dear me! What a list of charges,” says Miss Hollis, with an affected laugh. “Take warning, gentlemen! Miss Norwood will have little sympathy for you if you fall in love.” “Then we can come to this retreat and find some kindly rattlesnake to put an end to our pain,” says Charley. “Here’s a pretty flower. Will you have it?” It is Miss Hollis to whom he offers the flower—a delicate wild azalia—and she accepts it most graciously. “I am so fond of flowers,” she says. “I see a scarlet lobelia growing yonder on the rocks by the cascade. I wish—oh, I _do_ wish I could get that!” “But you can’t!” says Rupert, looking at the indicated flower, which grows in an inaccessible place—on the face of the rock over which the cascade tumbles, with a deep pool below. “Here is a lobelia,” says Mr. Lanier, who has been prying about among bushes and stones. “Will it not do as well?” “Oh, no,” says Miss Hollis, shaking her head. “It is not _that_ lobelia.—Mr. Kenyon, can’t you find any way to get it for me? I should be so delighted, and would wear it in my hair to-night.”