[Illustration: DELAWARE WATER GAP "Winding and wonderful it was in beauty, as we dropped into its deep, intimate valley, down the tremendous slope"] Almost, it would have been a relief, said Jack, to find the scenery less beautiful, so as to have a diminuendo and a crescendo--the crescendo to be our goal of that day, the Water Gap. But it _would_ keep on being so lovely, we could scarcely say when it was just _good_, when better, or when best. We had a gray road, glossy as a beaver's back, to travel on toward the Gap; a valley road with small mountains lifting curly dark heads in every direction to gaze down on us out of their glistening, perfumed foot-bath of evening mist. The villages we passed had pretty, sophisticated-looking new houses for "summer people"; here and there was a charming country inn with the air of being famous. At Bushkill (nice name!) the brown river forked, in a coquettish, laughing way shaking hands with itself and parting in the woods. Nearby was a glorious waterfall among charming hills which seemed to have been roused by the music of the cataract, and sat up with their hair standing all on end. Four or five miles from the great Water Gap we began to see the formation which gives that name. The mountains seem cleft in twain. It's a marvellous effect--startling! It took my breath away, as if I had seen a great window suddenly flung wide open in the sky. Truly, that's not an exaggeration of the sunset-wonder of the Delaware Water Gap! The hills were a deep, almost sullen purple that evening, the purple of darkest hyacinths. They made a high wall for the valley; then, in an instant, the wall was gone, as if hewed down with a firm, straight stroke, and there was that immense open window of golden light. Why, it was worth crossing the ocean to see as we saw it then! And we had come through such winding ways of hill and valley that it felt as if this were the end of the earth, the jumping-off place into a sea of jewelled colour. Yet they say it's only three or four hours in a fast train from New York! I don't want to believe that, and I shall never know by experience, for I shan't be so sacrilegious as to take a train while motors run on roads and aeroplanes skim through clouds. The town where the hotels and cottages are is as gay a little fairyland among the mountains as I used to think Baden-Baden or Carlsbad; just such maddeningly attractive little shops and bright gardens and beautifully grouped trees. We went on to a hotel in the woods, a hotel which seemed all veranda and view--a view our spirits drank in, in deep, unforgettable draughts: I mean, Jack's and mine drank. They were the only well-regulated, calm spirits in the whole procession, except the Goodriches, who are "always merry and bright."