ere a fire-place worthy of the middle ages, is already
brightened with a hospitable fire. The great rambling hotel is vacant,
and its silence unbroken, save by the hastening to and fro of our
willing host, who unites all offices of service in his own person, and
the pattering of his pretty little boy's feet--the little fellow
following him like his shadow, and, perchance, running away from other
shadows in this great empty house. The little fellow makes music to my
ear; there is no pleasanter sound than the footsteps of a child.

* * * * *

I left Alice dressing for dinner--I think Alice would perform the
ceremonial of a lady if she were shipwrecked on a desert island--and my
father awaiting dinner. Dear father is never the pleasantest company at
these seasons, when 'time stands still withal,' or rather, to him, keeps
a snail's fretting pace. Well, I left them both and went down to the
lake, a short walk, to greet the 'Old Man of the Mountain,' as they
prosaically call the wonderful head at the very summit of the Headland
Cliff, upreared on high over the beautiful bit of water named 'The Old
Man's Punch-bowl.' The nomenclature of our country certainly does not
indicate one particle of poetry or taste in its people. There are, to be
sure, namesakes of the old world which intimate the exile's loving
memories, and there are scattered, here and there, euphonious and
significant Indian names, not yet superseded by Brownvilles or
Smithdales, but for the most part, one would infer that pedagogues,
sophomores, and boors, had presided at the baptismal-font of the land.
To call that severe Dantescan head, which it would seem impossible that
accident should have formed, so defined and expressive is its outline,
like the Sphynx, a mystery in the desert--to call it the Old Man of the
Mountain, is irreverence, desecration! I and this exquisite little lake,
lapped amid the foldings and windings of the mountains, whose 'million
unseen spirits' may do the bidding of that heroic old Prospero who
presides over it--to call this gem of the forest a 'Punch-bowl,' is a
sorry travesty. I paid my homage to him while his profile cut the
glowing twilight, and then sat down at the brim of the lake.

Dear Susan,

----'the leanings
Of the close trees o'er the brim,
Had a sound beneath their leaves.'

And--I will borrow two lines more to help out my confession--

'Driftings of my dream do light