As they came opposite the ferry, they stopped for a moment to look at a scow approaching the shore. There were several men in it, and among them a black lad, who, at the moment the boat touched the shore, either by accident, or by the contrivance of his mischievous companions, fell overboard. While they gave way to a burst of merriment, the poor blackey regained a footing on terra firma, and shook the water from his woolly locks and dripping garments. "You an't white yet, Cuffee," said one of his persecutors. "Look if he has dyed the water," said another. "Don't laugh," said Julia to Edward, who, with a boyish love of fun, had joined in the laugh; "it is too bad to laugh at the poor fellow." "You are right, Julia," said Mrs. Sackville. "It is hard to belong to a degraded _caste_, to be born to the inheritance of jibes and jokes." They continued their walk a little farther down the bank, discovering new beauties at every step, till they came to a spot which Julia insisted could not be surpassed; and arranging a nice cushion on the grass with her shawl, she begged her mother to make a sketch there. "Now, mama," she said, "you must take both sides of the river." "You forget, Julia, that I cannot take a panorama view." "Then you must leave out the inn, and the beautiful hill behind it, with its sycamores and locusts, and the road that winds along the bank of the river." "Yes, my dear, here is the boundary of your picture:--this magnificent elm-tree, that seems to pay its debt to the nourishing waters, by extending its graceful branches over them." "And don't fail, mother," said Edward, "to mark the deep shadow it casts on that pier of the bridge they are building--and oh, do put in that little skiff so snugly moored in the shade, and hooked to the tree--and that taper church spire that stretches above the thick wood on the left;--oh, if you could but paint it as it looks now, with that bright gleam from the setting sun on it. And see, mother, just at this instant, what a golden mist there is in the topmost branches of that tree." "Stop your chattering one moment, Ned, till I get in this little brook on the left, that is creeping so softly into the bosom of the Mohawk. Oh, my children, it is an easy task to draw these lines so as to convey a correct idea of forms and distances, but very difficult to imitate the colouring of nature, the delicate touch of her skilful hand. How shall I represent the freshness and purity that marks the youth of the year?--like childhood, Ned, smiling and promising, and as yet unchanged by time." "If not changed, not perfected by time, dear mother," said Edward, kissing his mother. His manner expressed a mixture of admiration and tenderness that went to her heart. "You have spoiled my picture, Ned," she said, "I cannot make another straight line. Come, Julia, take up the port-folio, and we will return to the inn." * * * * *