We look and laugh. He is very much of a dandy in the matter of dress, this hapless gentleman, and to see all his coat-pockets bulging with stones and crammed with ferns and mosses is a sight which might move the gravest to mirth and the most insensible to compassion. [Illustration: “‘Look at my gloves!’”] “She wanted to fill my hat, too,” he says, “but I humbly submitted that I had no way to carry it except on my head, and it would have been inconvenient to have had several pounds of stones and moss in it.” “Not to such an enthusiast as yourself, I should think,” remarks one of the amused by-standers. Eric on his part is laden with a fragment of rock so large that no pocket which was ever made would contain it, and how he has managed to bring it down the mountain—not to speak of bringing Mrs. Cardigan also—we are unable to imagine. “He seemed to have no difficulty about it,” says that lady; “but, if an emergency had arisen, I am sure he would have let me go and kept the rock.” “I should have been more excusable in such a case than you think,” he answers. “I have several specimens of the Paint Rock, but none so perfect as this. Look at the streaks of color on it—why, it is admirable!” “And unique, I suppose; while women are easy enough to find,” she says, laughing.—“But I hope nobody thinks me in earnest,” she goes on, turning to the others. “Mr. Markham is the most capable and careful escort, and when he needed both hands to assist me, he laid his specimen tenderly down, and then went back for it.” “But what did you see to repay you for all this?” we ask. “See!” replies Sylvia. “Why, twenty times at least as much as you see here. Hundreds of mountains in _that_ direction”—a sweeping motion toward North Carolina— “and the whole state of Tennessee as far as the Cumberland Mountains.—Didn’t we, Eric?” “Not exactly the whole state,” says Eric, “but the Cumberland Mountains certainly. We were on the top of the ridge, and the view was very fine.” Soon after this—the day having considerably passed its meridian—we scramble down the steep path at the side of the rock and take our way to the carriages. Standing there in the cool shade of the trees that fringe the river, we look up at the great cliff, and are struck afresh by its majesty. Its rugged escarpments stand out boldly, for no shrub grows on the broken and irregular face of the precipice. When we are about to start, Eric says: “By-the-by, Charley, since you found the ford so good, we might as well cross there, instead of undergoing the delay of the ferry.” A quick glance passes between Charley and Sylvia—a glance compounded equally of amusement and consternation—then the former answers, coolly: “I wouldn’t advise you to do so. The ford is—well, rather deep. We crossed there, but we decided to try the ferry-boat on our return.”