onary among the poor. That's his winter work; the summers, as I
said, he spends in the hills. Most people are half afraid of him; for
he's one you'll get the blunt truth from, if you never got it before.
But come, there's the gong,--ugh! how they batter it! and we must get
through tea and out upon the balcony, to see the sunset and the 'purple
light.' There's no time now, girls, for blue grenadines; and it's always
vulgar to come out in a hurry with dress in a strange place." And Mrs.
Linceford gave a last touch to her hair, straightened the things on her
dressing-table, shut down the lid of a box, and led the way from the
room.

Out upon the balcony they watched the long, golden going down of the
sun, and the creeping shadows, and the purple half-light, and the
after-smile upon the crests. And then the heaven gathered itself in its
night stillness, and the mountains were grand in the soft gloom, until
the full moon came up over Washington.

There had been a few words of recognition with the Thoresby party, and
then our little group had betaken itself to the eastern end of the
piazza. After a while, one by one, the others strayed away, and they
were left almost alone. There was a gathering and a sound of voices
about the drawing-room, and presently came the tones of the piano,
struck merrily. They jarred, somehow, too; for the ringing, thrilling
notes of a horn, blown below, had just gone down the diminishing echoes
from cliff to cliff, and died into a listening silence, away over, one
could not tell where, beyond the mysterious ramparts.

"It's getting cold," said Jeannie impatiently. "I think we've stayed
here long enough. Augusta, _don't_ you mean to get a proper shawl, and
put some sort of lace thing on your head, and come in with us for a
look, at least, at the hop? Come, Nell; come, Leslie; you might as well
be at home as in a place like this, if you're only going to mope."

"It seems to me," said Leslie, more to herself than to Jeannie, looking
over upon the curves and ridges and ravines of Mount Washington, showing
vast and solemn under the climbing moon, "as if we had got into a
cathedral!"

"And the 'great nerve' was being touched! Well,--that don't make _me_
shiver. Besides, I didn't come here to shiver. I've come to have a right
good time; and to look at the mountains--as much as is reasonable."

It was a pretty good definition of what Jeannie Hadden thought she had
come into the world for. There was s