zation. Beyond here all is primitive, idyllic, Arcadian; at Waterbury the contentious hackman still survives. But it is a mild form of contention, sobered apparently and rendered decorous by the clear air, or the solemn mountains, or the grave religious tone of a Vermont village. We had missed the stage, and the runners for several livery - stables offered to provide special transportation. Their rivalry, though really keen, was suppressed into a sympathetic desire to furnish the traveller the most comfortable, the swiftest, and safest conveyance; and from this desire every low, mercenary consideration was sternly banished. "Don't take that other fellow's team," said one of them, in a sad tone; "the last time he went over, a wheel run off, and he nearly killed his party." "That man," retorted the other, brushing a kindly tear out of his eye, "lost his way last week, and was five hours on the road." Then a third began, in a mild, expostulating voice: "Ladies and gentlemen, I wouldn't go with either of them men. If you really want to go, I have a team," etc. Thus the strife of these benevolent gentlemen went on. We finally decided to wait for the stage, and the three rivals walked off together with an air of pious resignation, humming in chorus one of Moody and Sankey's hymns. In some other parts of the world, I suppose, a writer who wished to show that the inherent friendship of these men could survive all brief professional differences would say that they repaired to the nearest bar and took a drink together. At Waterbury the evening prayer-meeting would seem to be a more fitting place for the fraternal reconciliation.

The stage is ready at last, and the two hours' drive, especially if one has an outside seat, is no unpleasant experience on a July evening. It is the very heart of the Green Mountains. The road is good; the hills are neither too prolonged nor too abrupt. Enticing trout streams shoot across the way or ripple along its side. Mount Mansfield and Camel's Hump are seen, now on one hand, now on the other, as we pursue our sinuous course. The farms are neat, orderly, and apparently prosperous, although the oats and wheat seem to have a hard battle for life with the rocks and the sand. The people are plain, but cheerful, civil, and obliging. One observes little of that outward sullenness by which in some other parts of the country

Wa'al, our girls about these parts they've all gone to the White Mountains." "Indeed! That's surprising. There's such fine scenery right here at home, why do they go to the White Mountains?"

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Why do they go to the White Mountains? Wa'al, they go there because they git three dollars a week."

"Oh!" rejoined the coach, hastily, with some embarrassment; "we had not thought of it in that light.'

"Yes, sir," added the veteran, clinching his argument-"yes, sir, one of my girls gits three dollars a week, and don't have nothing to do but wash tumblers." And he bowed kindly as the stage moved away.

It seemed fitting to one of our party, a cynical person, to remark afterward that even washing tumblers day after day might become monotonous, and exclude the opportunities for that æsthetic culture now so much needed by domestic servants. "Still," he added, "if the newspapers may be trusted, they have the society of Dartmouth students in the busy season."

Let us respect honest toil. Not all Vermont girls are drawn to the White Mountains even by the liberal conditions which are there offered. Enough of them at least remain to do the service of the Mount Mansfield House, and to do it well. Neat, quick, intelligent, obliging, they lose no caste by earning their way; in winter they are the belles of "society." Brawny young farmers will find them the best of wives, and if another war should afflict the country, their sons will rush to arms not less promptly than did their fathers and brothers twenty years ago.

Stowe is a typical Vermont village of some one thousand inhabitants. The houses are nearly all white, and the white houses nearly all have green shutters,

though slight differences in the styles of architecture and a modest discrimination in the choice of flowers and the arrangement of flower beds afford a partial satisfaction to the eye. There is a small white church, and its spire, or "steeple," as the parishioners call it, shoots ambitiously upward into the clear blue air. There is a hotel, the Mount Mansfield House, built in 1864, and for some time in charge of a veteran Boston journalist-a spacious building, with broad verandas and long halls, with vast salons, where the waltz may safely be attempted, and well-disposed lawns, across which the croquet balls bound from morning till night, and the harmless missiles of tennis make their abrupt flights. From "Sunset Hill," a sharp elevation back of the hotel, the village resembles a flock of geese on the wing, the two main streets diverging toward the east and the west, while the apex, where the leader may be imagined, points timidly toward Waterbury on the south. Many other things may also be seen from Sunset Hill.

In the rear is the Worcester range; south, Camel's Hump; west, Mount Mansfield itself; and in the intervals, especially toward the north west, the green valley with its silver streams, its well-stocked farms, its neat farm-houses, with their barns and other buildings grouped in little colonies. about them. This is, too, a good point from which to begin the work of seeing a man's face in the profile of Mount Mansfield. The illustration provides all the materials of the problem. The features are all there in bold relief-forehead, nose, mouth, lips, chin-and the reader who fails to catch the resemblance will never understand why the mountain was called "Mans-field." He will be reduced to the false theory that its namesake was a famous English judge.

The distance from Stowe to the summit of the mountain is about nine miles. For five miles the route follows the ordinary country road through a pleasant valley; then it breaks off into the mountain, and winds about by easy grades to the top.

eral years, and the ascent can be made in any vehicle with the greatest comfort. The way is thickly wooded-along the lower part with beech, maple, birch, and even oak, which, however, gradually disappear, until the evergreen varieties alone remain, and these seem ill satisfied with their existence. Shade is therefore abundant, and the sun's rays are little felt. But this is at the cost of another form of enjoyment. Short of the summit itself no satisfactory view is obtained, with perhaps a partial exception in favor of the Half-way House. This seems once to have been a habitable house, at least for horses; though, thanks to the fretful por

to quadrupeds nor to bipeds. The hedgehogs have attacked the stalls and floor with ferocity and persistence, and have created vast intervals in the most solid partitions. The little animals are abundant all over the mountain, and many wild stories are told of their exploits. A horse belonging to the hotel was attacked by one, said John, the driver, and they afterward pulled seven hundred quills out of the poor beast; and if John had been coining a story he would not have been so recklessly exact.

Half a mile before the summit is reached the woods open, and the carriage climbs a stiff rocky ledge for the rest of the way.

The Nose towers up directly above us, and the other features stretch away in the distance, massive, solemn, forbidding.

The description of the mountain and its views may properly be prefaced by a few useful facts and figures. The highest point, the Chin, is 4359 feet above sea-level, and 3670 above the village of Stowe. The Nose, the next peak, is 340 feet lower; the Forehead, 160 feet below the Nose.

From the Nose to the Chin-the extreme points of ordinary exploration-the distance is about one and a half miles. The mountain has long been accessible to adventurous tourists, but it is only within the last twenty years, or since the opening of the Mount Mansfield House, that they have come in any number or regularly. The completion of the carriage road to the summit brought, of course, a large increase of both transient and permanent guests.

We can now examine the face of the giant as calmly and fearlessly as the Lilliputians walked about over the prostrate Gulliver.

To reach the point of the Nose involves a sharp though short climb, facilitated by a flight of rude steps which have been formed by the ledges of the rock. The old Latin line must be reversed before it can be applied to the Nose. The ascent is safe and not difficult, but the descenthic labor, hoc opus est. The stone is as smooth and slippery as ice; and a single false step would precipitate one two hundred feet or more to the bottom. This is

on the west. The northern side is nearly perpendicular; and although the process which shaped it began thousands of years ago, it has not yet ceased. From time to time immense masses of rock detach themselves and plunge into the abyss below, where they still lie heaped upon one another in wild disorder. One of these terrible bowlders was formerly poised on the very end of the Nose, almost without visible means of support. It was supposed that it could be pried loose by hand, but repeated attempts led only to disappointment. One day in 1859, however, it started voluntarily, and rolled down the precipice, shaking the mountain like an earthquake, and at the bottom bursting into a thousand fragments. A party of men and women had been on the rock but half an hour before it fell, and others had been strolling about the foot of the cliff where it lodged.

The Summit House is situated at the foot of the Nose, on the eastward slope of the ridge. It is a frame building of two stories, with ample balconies, comfortable rooms, and a satisfactory cuisine. Its