carriage drive to-morrow to Sam's Point. We have two seats in our conveyance at your disposal and would be delighted to have you accompany us. May we hope that you both can come with us?"

Fillmore Flagg and George Gaylord both eagerly accepted the invitation, the ladies passed on to their rooms, while the young men turned their steps once more to the rustic bench to enjoy the magnificent sunset view of the landscape they had so much admired earlier in the day.

CHAPTER IV.

THE STORY OF A STONE AND WHAT CAME AFTER.

Sam's Point, the crowning backbone of the highest mountain in the Shawangunk range, bends away from the general course of its fellows apparently for the especial purpose of giving the mountain climber, by its isolation, a commanding view in almost every direction except to the north-east. For miles in extent the flat, rocky top of this crown forms a promenade of magnificent proportions up amid the clouds. In shape it is a long, slender triangle, about three miles from its base westward to the point where its highest altitude is reached, two thousand three hundred and forty feet above tide-water. Cradled in its rocky bosom, near the base of the triangle, lies a crystal lake—one hundred and fifty acres of sparkling water. At this point the promenade is fully three-fourths of a mile wide, gradually narrowing to a width of less than one hundred feet at the extreme point. The long battlemented sides of this lofty triangle, like some mighty fortress, grim and frowning, are protected and supported by perpendicular cliffs of black rock, rising like some bastioned wall of terrifying proportions, two hundred feet above the shoulder of the mountain. In a sheltered nook, near the point, about five hundred feet below the base of the cliffs, stands the Sam's Point Hotel, scarcely more than a cottage in size. Here Fern Fenwick's party left the carriage. Taking the narrow, zig-zag pathway that led to the cliffs and often pausing to admire the immensity and grandeur of the black rock palisades towering so far above them, they soon found themselves under the nose of the point of rocks. Entering the crevice in the cliffs known as "The Chimney Stairway," they commenced the steep and toilsome climb to the summit; Fillmore Flagg taking the lead and assisting Miss Fenwick, George Gaylord performing the same service for Mrs. Bainbridge; fifteen minutes later they stood, almost breathless, upon the summit, the blue sky all about them, a precipice on either hand where shimmering, giddy space seemed to yawn so frightfully near. Meanwhile a strong, buffeting wind tugged at ribbons and capes, hats and bonnets, so furiously that walking was hazardous; it gave one such an uneasy sensation of giddiness and unstable equilibrium generally, that the temptation to fly over the edge of the cliff was hard to resist. A huge egg-shaped boulder, twenty-five feet in height and as large as a house, poised rather unsteadily on its rounded base, was quite near and gave promise of protection from the violence of the wind. With one accord our party scrambled towards it, the ladies clinging tightly to their escorts with one hand, a firm grip on hat or bonnet with the other. Thus sheltered, and more at ease, they slowly drank in the glorious vision which greeted the eye on every hand. Looking down as from a balloon, at the foot of the mountain, on the north side, the eye was charmed by the length and beauty of the Rondout Valley, through which ran the Delaware and Hudson Canal, and the Rondout River. For miles on either side of canal and river the valley was made more lovely by its checkered farms and gleaming white villages. Directly at the foot of the mountain on the south side, the broader valley of the Wallkill presented an equally beautiful and diversified picture of farm, hamlet and village. Beyond these, in every direction save to the north-east, vast stretches of country lay spread out like a map; the mountains far and near, so dwarfed as to give to the surface the appearance of billowy plains, almost level where they approached the edge of the horizon. The wonderful extent and scope of the view was bounded by the line of the horizon, at least one hundred miles distant. Three-fourths of this sweeping circle responded to the unaided vision, disclosing the blue hills and hazy mountain peaks located in five states: New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts, altogether presenting in its immensity a landscape as variegated and charming as it was wondrously beautiful and attractive—a marvellous picture of indescribable loveliness never to be forgotten.

"How inspiringly magnificent!" said Fillmore Flagg: "All the sublimity of my nature is satisfied."

"And I," said Fern Fenwick, "am too profoundly impressed to talk. I would that I could spend hours here in silent admiration."

"I think," said Mrs. Bainbridge, "that we would better move further back on the rocky summit where doubtless, sheltered seats may be found, then we can all enjoy this most wonderful of views at our leisure and with some degree of comfort."

"Yes," said George Gaylord, "that will be ever so much nicer."

"Stop a moment," said Fern Fenwick, who for some moments had been examining the huge boulder which sheltered them, "Have you noticed the curious formation of this immense stone? How many hundreds of tons it may weigh, I hardly dare guess. Geologically speaking, it is a 'stranger rock,' not in any way related to the rocks of this mountain, nor of the mountains near here. It is a mammoth conglomerate of such an interestingly curious compound and of such flinty hardness. At the time of its formation enormous pressure, coupled with the most intense heat, must have molded this strange mass together. Coarse and fine gravel, smooth, round pebbles, from the size of a pigeon's egg to that of a two-hundred-pound boulder, are all jumbled together in great confusion, and so firmly cemented in this immense globular mass of that peculiar, tenacious clay of greenish gray color, which forms so large a part of the drift formation, and which is so widely distributed over the face of our globe—that strange, unaccountable, isolated and unrelated formation, which still remains an unsolved puzzle by our best geologists. I wish you to observe the long sides of this strange rock, especially where the exposed sides of the pebbles have been worn down smooth and even with the clay—how they are marked and striated by shallow grooves, all running in one direction as straight as though graven by rule. Is it possible that any freak or flood of the glacial period could have floated this huge rock to its resting place on the very summit of this high mountain, almost two thousand five hundred feet above the level of the sea? Oh! tell me, ye listening mortals, or ye winged winds that blow and pull my ribbons so! whence came this stranger rock? how formed? and how were its smooth, worn sides so systematically engraved?"

Fern Fenwick closed her series of queries with a gradually rising pitch and inflection in the ringing tones of her clear, musical voice. With figure erect, eyes flashing, cheeks glowing and hands uplifted, she seemed the personification of some priestess of science. Fillmore Flagg and George Gaylord gazed at her with the admiration of amazement. Mrs. Bainbridge exclaimed:

"Why Fern Fenwick! How you do go on with such nonsense, to be sure. No doubt these gentlemen, from this time forward, will look at you as some scientific freak or geological professor of the female persuasion, but recently escaped from the walls of some famous college!"

"Mrs. Bainbridge," said Fillmore Flagg, "of course we understand that you were joking in what you said just now: that you really admire the terse,