awaiting passengers, 'the last of the season,' we were told. 'The
houses are all closed,' (he spoke technically) added our driver,
'and the cold has already been so tedious that the _bubble_ has
burst on Mt. Washington.' 'What! the bubble! What means the man?'
exclaimed my father. 'Oh!' said I, 'it is only a poor joke upon
some 'nothing venture, nothing have' people who have come here
since the company season is past, they have told them the bulb had
burst.' 'Oh! the bulb! the bulb!' exclaimed my father; 'oh! that's
it, and I don't in the least doubt it' And as we went on slowly
making the long ascent, he looked 'sagely sad.' However, Alice was,
as she always can be, 'bright without the sun,' and my father
kindly protested that the slight sprinkling that, ever and anon,
reminded us of our exposure in an open wagon, was no annoyance to
him, and he even responded to our exclamations of delight at the
wreaths of mist that floated around the mountains, and dropped over
their summits, so that our imaginations were not kept in abeyance
by definite outlines, and we were at liberty to fancy them just as
high as we wished them. The air was as soft as in the early days of
September, and our steeds very considerately lingered, thus
prolonging our pleasure, so that we came into the Glen-House with
keen appetites, a needful blessing, we thought, when Mr. Thompson,
its host, said: 'We are not prepared for company in October, and I
don't know that we shall find any thing but pork and beans to give
you!' My father looked blank, and blanker yet when we were ushered
into a parlor where, instead of finding the crackling wood-fire
that we had fancied indigenous in these mountains, there was one of
those frightful black stoves that have expelled from our life all
the poetry of the hearthstone--but, courage, we can open the
stove-door, and see a sparkle of light and life.

10 P.M.--Before bidding you good night, dear Sue, I must tell you
'pour encourager les autres' who may come after us that our
scrupulous host performed so much better than he promised, that
when we were summoned to our dinner it was served in a cosy little
room, as neatly as a home dinner, and hot, which a hotel meal, _in
the season_, never is, and that the ghost of the pork and beans
which had t