ich I had constantly
felt one of the most interesting facts in my observation of New England.

As for the sort of summer hotel portrayed in these pages, it was
materialized from an acquaintance with summer hotels extending over
quarter of a century, and scarcely to be surpassed if paralleled. I had
a passion for knowing about them and understanding their operation which
I indulged at every opportunity, and which I remember was satisfied as
to every reasonable detail at one of the pleasantest seaside hostelries
by one of the most intelligent and obliging of landlords. Yet, hotels
for hotels, I was interested in those of the hills rather than those of
the shores.

I worked steadily if not rapidly at the story. Often I went back over
it, and tore it to pieces and put it together again. It made me feel at
times as if I should never learn my trade, but so did every novel I have
written; every novel, in fact, has been a new trade. In, the case of
this one the publishers were hurrying me in the revision for copy to
give the illustrator, who was hurrying his pictures for the English and
Australian serializations.

KITTERY POINT, MAINE, July, 1909.

THE LANDLORD AT LION'S HEAD

I.

If you looked at the mountain from the west, the line of the summit was
wandering and uncertain, like that of most mountain-tops; but, seen from
the east, the mass of granite showing above the dense forests of the
lower slopes had the form of a sleeping lion. The flanks and haunches
were vaguely distinguished from the mass; but the mighty head, resting
with its tossed mane upon the vast paws stretched before it, was boldly
sculptured against the sky. The likeness could not have been more
perfect, when you had it in profile, if it had been a definite intention
of art; and you could travel far north and far south before the illusion
vanished. In winter the head was blotted by the snows; and sometimes
the vagrant clouds caught upon it and deformed it, or hid it, at other
seasons; but commonly, after the last snow went in the spring until
the first snow came in the fall, the Lion's Head was a part of the
landscape, as imperative and importunate as the Great Stone Face itself.

Long after other parts of the hill country were opened to summer
sojourn, the region of Lion's Head remained almost primitively solitary
and savage. A stony mountain road followed the bed of the torrent that
brawled through the valley at its base, and at a certai