is especially attractive. The Franconia Notch is a beautiful mountain pass, five miles long and half a mile wide. The sides are bold and often precipitous, and crowned with forests. The Pemigewasset River flows through this defile. There

is a charming lake called Echo Lake near the north end, which ought to be visited. The echo from the center of the lake is wonderfully distinct, and of course there is the usual Indian superstition connected with it, that the echo is the voice of the Great Spirit. The second view is of the Cannon or Profile Mountain as seen from the Eagle Cliff Mountain, looking down the Notch. From some points of view the top of this mountain has some resemblance to a mounted cannon. The view from the summit is, of course, inexpressibly grand and very extensive. From another point of view the profile of an old man's face is distinctly traceable, and from a third, still another profile-that of an old woman. It was this mountain that suggested to Hawthorne his story in "Twice Told Tales" of "The Great Stone Face." Here we also find another beautiful lake called "Profile Lake."

LILIAN: Hawthorne begins his story, I think, by saying that the valley overlooked by this mountain contains many thousand inhabitants.

THE PRESIDENT: That is taking a kind of poetic license with these New Hampshire valleys, although some of them are quite populous.

ALBERT: I have read Hawthorne's little story, and I confess I do not see the point of it. It is of a simple-minded, virtuous man, growing up among his neighbors, and all his life looking for the fulfillment of an old legend that somebody will come along whose face shall resemble the profile of the "old man of the mountain," and that that person, whoever he might be, should be the greatest and noblest personage of his time. The people of the valley at length discovered that this simple-minded neighbor of theirs was the man.

THE PRESIDENT : I suppose that the moral lies in the fact that the man himself never suspected the likeness nor dreamed that he was either great or noble. AUNT HARRIET : True nobility of character is, I suppose, inconsistent with what is termed self-consciousness or egotism.

THE PRESIDENT: The instant we begin to imagine we are great we betray our littleness.

DR. PAULUS: " Professing themselves to be wise they became fools."
AUNT HARRIET: Perhaps there is another point in the story.

From habitual

contemplation of this natural object, and from associating it in his mind with thoughts of virtue, the man grew up in the moral likeness of an ideal character. Hence the value of an ideal, and of some outward things to remind us of it.

THE COLONEL: Is there not a touch of ritualism there, Miss Victor?

AUNT HARRIET : Possibly, but I am not ashamed of it if there is. Because ritualism may be carried to an absurdity by some people is no reason why we should not be taught through our senses.

BERTRAM : Professor, you must please tell us something of the geology of these mountains.

THE PRESIDENT: They are formed of the primitive metamorphic rocks, with peaks of granite and gneiss, but I have not yet read the reports of Professor Charles Hitchcock, the State geologist, which I understand are particularly full and valuable. Our time this evening will, however, hardly admit of an excursion into this branch of inquiry. Meantime I would ask if some member of the club can recite to us any portion of Whittier's poem on White Mountain scenery. LAURA: I remember some lines of his from "Franconia."

Once more, O Mountain of the North, unveil

that seek eyes

ye

fail,

Your brows, and lay your cloudy mantles by;
And once more, ere the
Uplift against the blue walls of the sky
Your mighty shapes, and let the sunshine weave
Its golden net-work in your belting woods;
Smile down in rainbows from your falling floods,
And on your kingly brows, at morn and eve,

Set crowns of fire! So shall my soul receive,
Haply, the secret of your calm and strength,
Your unforgotten beauty interfuse

My common life, your glorious shapes and hues
And sun-dropped splendors at my bidding come,

Loom vast through dreams and stretch in billowy length
From the sea level of my lowland home.

II

CHAPTER XVII.

OTHER PICTURESQUE VIEWS OF NEW ENGLAND.

OR our entertainment this evening, remarked the President, it is provided that we make short flying excursions to some other points in New England. And first we will have a talk about Connecticut and its famous river.

The history of Connecticut may be said to begin in 1630, when

a grant of territory, extending from the southeast coast of Rhode Island, northward to the Massachusetts line, and westward to the extreme limits of the continent, was made to Lord Warwick by the Plymouth Company.

JOHN What was the Plymouth Company?

THE PRESIDENT: A commercial and colonization company formed in England

in 1606.

JOHN: The Puritans landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620.

THE PRESIDENT: This was, therefore, several years before the Puritans sailed for America. The Plymouth Company and the London Company were formed in England in consequence of discoveries in the western hemisphere, and for purposes of gain. They obtained Charters from King James I., and sent vessels over to America to settle the country and develop its resources for trade with England. The Plymouth Company were to operate north of the forty-first parallel of latitude. Take the map and note that this runs through New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The London Company were to operate south of the thirty-eighth parallel to the thirty-fourth, comprising part of Virginia, the Carolinas, etc. It would be interesting to follow the fortunes of these companies, but that is out of the question now.

MRS. GOLDUST: I always thought that the Puritans were the first white people that came to America.

THE PRESIDENT: By no manner of means; but they were the first that came and stayed in the part we call New England, and they stayed to good purpose, as

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