groaned the major. "Heaven save me from attempting the
ascension! Can we do nothing better than tear our clothes and bruise our
shins among brushwood and bridle-paths; clambering up to the sky just to
stare about us a few moments, and then tumbling down headlong, as it
were, to the valleys again?"

"Well," said Edgar, "if the Great Haystack intimidates you, suppose we
ride up through the Notch, and visit the 'Old Man.'"

"What old man?" asked the major.

"The Old Man of the Mountain!"

"I should have no objection to calling on the old fellow," returned
Major Howard, "if he did not live on a mountain; but I cannot think of
climbing up any more of these prodigious steeps,--even to see a king in
his regal palace."

A burst of laughter followed the major's misapprehension of the object
which Lindenwood had proposed to visit.

"It is not a man of flesh and blood we are to see, father," said
Florence, as soon as she could command her voice sufficiently to speak,
"but a granite profile, standing out from a peak of solid rock, exactly
resembling the features of a man's face; whence its name, 'Old Man of
the Mountain.'"

"Ay, that's all, then!" said the major, referring to his guidebook. "I
shall be very glad of the privilege of standing on the ground for once
and looking up at an object; for I confess it afflicts my
kindly-affectioned nature to be forever looking down upon this goodly
earth, as if in disdainful contempt of its manifold beauties. So,
to-morrow, ladies and gentlemen," added he, rising, "we are to pay our
respects to this 'Old Man.' I hear music below. You young people would
like to join the merry groups, I suppose. I'm going down to the office
to enjoy a cigar, and then retire, for my old bones are sadly racked
with the jaunts of to-day. Good-night to you all." Thus saying, he
walked away.

"Would you like to join the dancers, Ellen?" asked Florence, turning to
the fair girl who sat in a rocking-chair by the window, gazing out on
the moon-lit earth.

"I don't care to join the dance," she returned; "but I would like to go
and listen to the music a while."

"Then let us go," said her brother; "that is, if agreeable to Miss
Florence and Mr. Lindenwood."

"I shall be happy to accompany you, Miss Howard," said he, offering
Florence his arm, which she accepted, and the party descended to the
parlors. They were well-lighted, and filled with guests. Edward and
Ellen soon became exhilarated by the music, a