nt
arrangement of Providence, that, when eyes and brain and heart are
weary with looking and receiving, an impenetrable barrier is
noiselessly let down, and you are forced to rest. Besides, there are
many things which it is not absolutely essential to see, but which,
nevertheless, are very interesting in the sight. You would not think
of turning away from a mountain or a waterfall to visit them, but when
you are forcibly shut out from both, you condescend to homelier sights.
For instance, I wonder how many frequenters of the Alpine house ever
saw or know that there is a dairy in its Plutonian regions. A rainy day
discovered it to us, and, with many an injunction touching possible
dust, we were bidden into those mysterious precincts. A carpet, laid
loose over the steps, forestalled every atom of defilement, and,
descending cautiously and fearfully through portals and outer courts,
we trod presently the adytum. It was a dark, cool, silent place. The
floors were white, spotless, and actually fragrant with cleanliness.
The sides of the room were lined with shelves, the shelves begemmed
with bright pans, and the bright pans filled with milk,--I don't know
how many pans there were, but I should think about a million,--and
there was a mound of pails piled up to be washed, and cosy little
colonies of butter, pleasant to eyes, nose, and mouth, and a curious
machine to work butter over, consisting of something like a table in
the shape of the letter V, the flat part a trough, with a wooden handle
to push back and forth, and the buttermilk running out at the apex of
the V. If the principle on which it is constructed is a secret, I
don't believe I have divulged it; but I do not aim to let you know
precisely what it is, only that there is such a thing. I hope now that
every one will not flock down cellar the moment he alights from the
Gorham train. I should be very sorry to divert the stream of travel
into Mr. Hitchcock's dairy, for I am sure any great influx of visitors
would sorely disconcert the good genius who presides there, and would
be an ill requital for her kindness to us; but it was so novel and
pleasant a sight that I am sure she will pardon me for speaking of it
just this once.

Another mild entertainment during an intermittent rain is a run of
about a mile up to the "hennery," which buds and blossoms with the
dearest little ducks of ducks, broad-billed, downy, toddling, tumbling
in and out of a trough of water,