to the little child that held out its arms to him. One glance and smile
placed the stranger on a footing of innocent familiarity with the eldest
daughter.

'Ah, this fire is the right thing!' cried he; 'especially when there is
such a pleasant circle round it. I am quite benumbed; for the Notch is
just like the pipe of a great pair of bellows; it has blown a terrible
blast in my face all the way from Bartlett.'

'Then you are going towards Vermont?' said the master of the house, as
he helped to take a light knapsack off the young man's shoulders.

'Yes; to Burlington, and far enough beyond,' replied he. 'I meant to
have been at Ethan Crawford's tonight; but a pedestrian lingers along
such a road as this. It is no matter; for, when I saw this good fire,
and all your cheerful faces, I felt as if you had kindled it on purpose
for me, and were waiting my arrival. So I shall sit down among you, and
make myself at home.'

The frank-hearted stranger had just drawn his chair to the fire when
something like a heavy footstep was heard without, rushing down the
steep side of the mountain, as with long and rapid strides, and taking
such a leap in passing the cottage as to strike the opposite precipice.
The family held their breath, because they knew the sound, and their
guest held his by instinct.

'The old mountain has thrown a stone at us, for fear we should forget
him,' said the landlord, recovering himself. 'He sometimes nods his head
and threatens to come down; but we are old neighbors, and agree together
pretty well upon the whole. Besides we have a sure place of refuge hard
by if he should be coming in good earnest.'

Let us now suppose the stranger to have finished his supper of bear's
meat; and, by his natural felicity of manner, to have placed himself
on a footing of kindness with the whole family, so that they talked as
freely together as if he belonged to their mountain brood. He was of a
proud, yet gentle spirit--haughty and reserved among the rich and great;
but ever ready to stoop his head to the lowly cottage door, and be like
a brother or a son at the poor man's fireside. In the household of
the Notch he found warmth and simplicity of feeling, the pervading
intelligence of New England, and a poetry of native growth, which they
had gathered when they little thought of it from the mountain peaks and
chasms, and at the very threshold of their romantic and dangerous abode.
He had travelled far and alone; his wh