st 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 certain point a still
rougher lane climbed from t