moments of this strange life of ours not to be
described--feelings for which language is no organ. While such a moment
sped with father and daughters, their deliverer stood apart. The father
gazed upon his darling child, satisfying himself that 'not a hair' had
perished, but she was only 'fresher than before;' and, as he afterward
said, 'fully recovering his wits,' he turned to thank the preserver of
his children. He was standing half-concealed behind a cluster of
evergreens.

'Come forward, my dear fellow,' he said, 'for God's sake, let me grasp
your hand!'

He did not move.

'Oh! come,' urged Mr. Sandford, 'never mind your shirt-sleeves--it's no
time to be particular about trifles.'

Still he didn't move.

'Oh! come, dear Carl!' said Mary.

And her lover sprang to her feet!

* * * * *

What immediately followed was not told me. But there was no
after-coldness or reluctance on the part of the good father. His heart
was melted and fused in affection and gratitude for his daughter's
lover. His prejudices were vanquished, and he was just as well satisfied
as if they had been overcome by the slower processes of reason and
conviction.

The truth was, the old gentleman was not to be outdone in magnanimity.
Mary's filial devotion had prepared him to yield his opposition, and he
confessed that he had, in his own secret counsel with himself,
determined to recall Heiner at the end of another year, if he proved
constant and half as deserving as his foolish girl thought him. But
Prospero--as Mary called the Old Man of the Mountain--had seen fit to
take the business into his own hands, and setting his magic to work, had
stirred up a tempest in his Punch-Bowl, just to bring these young
romancers together. But by what spell had he conjured up the lover, just
at the critical moment?

Heiner confessed, that not being able to get off in the steamer of the
twenty-ninth, as he had purposed, he had delayed his embarkation for ten
days, and the magic of love--really the only magic left in our prosaic
world--had drawn him to the White Mountains, where he might have the
happiness (a lover, perhaps, only could appreciate it) of breathing the
same atmosphere with Mary, and possibly of now and then getting a
glimpse of her. Thus he had stood on the summit of Mount Washington
when, by some mysterious magnetism, she was gazing through the glass;
thus he narrowly escaped detection near the Willey Slide;