n with two pianos and a bevy of young ladies,
whose clothes were certainly not made on Cut Laurel Gap, and to read
in the books scattered about the house the evidences of the finishing
schools with which our country is blessed, nor to find here pupils
of the Stonewall Jackson Institute at Abingdon. With a flush of local
pride, the Professor took up, in the roomy, pleasant chamber set apart
for the guests, a copy of Porter's "Elements of Moral Science."

"Where you see the 'Elements of Moral Science,'" the Friend generalized,
"there'll be plenty of water and towels;" and the sign did not fail. The
friends intended to read this book in the cool of the day; but as they
sat on the long veranda, the voice of a maiden reading the latest novel
to a sewing group behind the blinds in the drawing-room; and the antics
of a mule and a boy in front of the store opposite; and the arrival of
a spruce young man, who had just ridden over from somewhere, a matter
of ten miles' gallop, to get a medicinal potion for his sick mother, and
lingered chatting with the young ladies until we began to fear that his
mother would recover before his return; the coming and going of lean
women in shackly wagons to trade at the store; the coming home of the
cows, splashing through the stream, hooking right and left, and lowing
for the hand of the milker,--all these interruptions, together with the
generally drowsy quiet of the approach of evening, interfered with the
study of the Elements. And when the travelers, after a refreshing rest,
went on their way next morning, considering the Elements and the pianos
and the refinement, to say nothing of the cuisine, which is not treated
of in the text-book referred to, they were content with a bill double
that of brother Egger, in his brick magnificence.

The simple truth is, that the traveler in this region must be content
to feed on natural beauties. And it is an unfortunate truth in natural
history that the appetite for this sort of diet fails after a time,
if the inner man is not supplied with other sort of food. There is no
landscape in the world that is agreeable after two days of rusty-bacon
and slack biscuit.

"How lovely this would be," exclaimed the Professor, if it had a
background of beefsteak and coffee!

We were riding along the west fork of the Laurel, distinguished locally
as Three Top Creek,--or, rather, we were riding in it, crossing it
thirty-one times within six miles; a charming wood (an