ice, is
three or four miles long, while the footpath leading by the river is
not more than two miles in length. The latter is impassable, on account
of the log bridges having been swept away by the recent freshets. The
other day two oxen lost their footing and fell over the precipice, and
it is the general opinion that they were killed long before they
reached the golden palace of the Plumerian Thetis. I was a little
alarmed at first, for fear my horse would stumble, in which case I
should have shared the fate of the unhappy beeves, but soon forgot all
fear in the enchanting display of flowers which each opening in the
shrubs displayed to me. Earth's firmament was starred with daphnes,
irises, and violets of every hue and size; pale wood-anemones, with but
one faint sigh of fragrance as they expired, died by hundreds beneath
my horse's tread; and spotted tiger-lilies, with their stately heads
all bedizened in orange and black, marshaled along the path like an
army of gayly clad warriors. But the flowers are not all of an oriental
character. Do you remember, Molly dear, how you and I once quarreled
when we were, oh, such mites of children, about a sprig of syringa? The
dear mother was obliged to interfere, and to make all right she gave
you a small brown bud, of most penetrating fragrance, which she told
you was much more valuable than the contested flower. I remember
perfectly that she failed entirely in convincing _me_ that the dark,
somber flower was half as beautiful as my pretty cream-tinted blossom,
and, if I mistake not, you were but poutingly satisfied with the
substitute. Here, even if we retained, which I do not, our childish
fascination for syringas, we should not need to quarrel about them, for
they are as common as dandelions in a New England meadow, and dispense
their peculiar perfume--which, by the way, always reminds me of Lubin's
choicest scents--in almost sickening profusion. Besides the
above-mentioned flowers, we saw wild roses and buttercups and flox and
privet, and whole acres of the wand-like lily. I have often heard it
said, though I cannot vouch for the truth of the assertion, that it is
only during the month of January that you cannot gather a bouquet in
the mountains.

Just before one reaches The Junction there is a beautiful grove of
oaks, through which there leaps a gay little rivulet celebrated for the
grateful coolness of its waters. Of course one is expected to
propitiate this pretty Undi