Atlantic Coast (U.S.) -- Description and travel -- Fiction
Yes, they were going to Newport. King and Forbes, who had not had a
Fourth of July for some time, wanted to see what it was like at Newport.
Mr. De Long would like their company. But before they went the artist
must make one more trial at a sketch-must get the local color. It was a
large party that went one morning to see it done under the famous ledge
of rocks on the Red Path. It is a fascinating spot, with its coolness,
sense of seclusion, mosses, wild flowers, and ferns. In a small grotto
under the frowning wall of the precipice is said to be a spring, but it
is difficult to find, and lovers need to go a great many times in search
of it. People not in love can sometimes find a damp place in the sand.
The question was where Miss Lamont should pose. Should she nestle under
the great ledge, or sit on a projecting rock with her figure against
the sky? The artist could not satisfy himself, and the girl, always
adventurous, kept shifting her position, climbing about on the jutting
ledge, until she stood at last on the top of the precipice, which was
some thirty or forty feet high. Against the top leaned a dead balsam,
just as some tempest had cast it, its dead branches bleached and
scraggy. Down this impossible ladder the girl announced her intention
of coming. “No, no,” shouted a chorus of voices; “go round; it's unsafe;
the limbs will break; you can't get through them; you'll break your
neck.” The girl stood calculating the possibility. The more difficult
the feat seemed, the more she longed to try it.
“For Heaven's sake don't try it, Miss Lamont,” cried the artist.
“But I want to. I think I must. You can sketch me in the act. It will be
something new.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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