The shifting landscape looked very lovely in the softened lights of that pleasant June day. The tender green of the foliage, orchards in full bloom, neat farm-houses, glimpses of the river Passaic, and their noble views of a beautiful valley, in the midst of which rose the spires of Port Jervis, lying prettily among the hills, were presented to the eye and as rapidly withdrawn. Then the scenery became more wild as the train rushed along the high embankment, following the course of the Delaware, and looking down upon its rapid waters. It is a wild, rugged region; huge trees, great prostrate trunks, scarred and blackened trophies of the progress of the advancing settler wrestling with his gigantic foes; log-cabins surrounded by unsightly clearings marred with frequent stumps; fields of wheat struggling for existence in the scanty soil; fantastical fences formed of twisted, gnarled, antler-like roots. A most picturesque region, which might, however, call forth the comment of the sturdy Sussex farmer: “_Picturesque!_ I don’t know what you call picturesque; but I say, give me a soil that when you turn it up you have something for your pains; the fine soil makes the fine country, madam.” Norman looked with astonishment on the lofty and massive arches of the bridges over which the railroad crosses the valley, and had a glimpse of the water leaping down the ravine at Cascade Bridge. A number of men were working there on the steep sandy sides of the cliff, that seemed to afford them a most perilous footing. One noble view he had of the Susquehanna with its islands; and then, as they changed cars at Elmira, the rain obscured the lake and the fine country on their way northward to Niagara. CHAPTER II. TWO DAYS AT NIAGARA. “As if God poured it from his hollow hand, And had bid Its flood to chronicle the ages back, And notch his centuries in the eternal rock.” “No clearing to-day, Norman,” said Mrs. Lester, as they left the Cataract Hotel in the drizzling rain to cross over to Goat Island. They paused upon the bridge, and looked upon the rapids, foaming, and dashing, and roaring beneath. “I can understand now,” said Norman, “what I have read about morbid impulses, for I feel as if I would like to jump into the rushing water.” The path down the hill to Juna Island was very muddy and slippery, and they were obliged to walk down very carefully, lest a misstep should plunge them into the mighty current. Mrs. Lester told Norman of a happy party that once crossed the bridge to this island; of the little girl playfully thrown toward the fall by a young man; of the sudden terror that led her to jump from his arms; of his fearful plunge to save the life he had periled, and of the twain borne over that giddy verge. Those fresh young lives, gone in one moment, with all of earthly hope and aspiration.