ain House some forty
years ago.

The old Mountain House, standing upon its ledge of rock, from which
one looks down upon a map of a considerable portion of New York and New
England, with the lake in the rear, and heights on each side that offer
charming walks to those who have in contemplation views of nature or
of matrimony, has somewhat lost its importance since the vast Catskill
region has come to the knowledge of the world. A generation ago it
was the centre of attraction, and it was understood that going to the
Catskills was going there. Generations of searchers after immortality
have chiseled their names in the rock platform, and one who sits there
now falls to musing on the vanity of human nature and the transitoriness
of fashion. Now New York has found that it has very convenient to it
a great mountain pleasure-ground; railways and excellent roads have
pierced it, the varied beauties of rocks, ravines, and charming retreats
are revealed, excellent hotels capable of entertaining a thousand guests
are planted on heights and slopes commanding mountain as well as lowland
prospects, great and small boarding-houses cluster in the high valleys
and on the hillsides, and cottages more thickly every year dot the
wild region. Year by year these accommodations will increase, new
roads around the gorges will open more enchanting views, and it is not
improbable that the species of American known as the "summer boarder"
will have his highest development and apotheosis in these mountains.

Nevertheless Mr. King was not uninterested in renewing his memories
of the old house. He could recall without difficulty, and also without
emotion now, a scene on this upper veranda and a moonlight night long
ago, and he had no doubt he could find her name carved on a beech-tree
in the wood near by; but it was useless to look for it, for her name had
been changed. The place was, indeed, full of memories, but all chastened
and subdued by the indoor atmosphere, which impressed him as that of
a faded Sunday. He was very careful not to disturb the decorum by any
frivolity of demeanor, and he cautioned the artist on this point; but
Mr. Forbes declared that the dining-room fare kept his spirits at a
proper level. There was an old-time satisfaction in wandering into the
parlor, and resting on the haircloth sofa, and looking at the hair-cloth
chairs, and pensively imagining a meeting there, with songs out of
the Moody and Sankey book; and he did not