nspiration and encouragement in life's
blackest, bitterest hours, her best and dearest friend, Miss Torreyson,
and the writer, made up the trio. We were joined by and by with a party
of others kindred in spirit, who entered into all our schemes and
reconnoissances after pleasure.

Those were memorable six weeks; and now, at this distance of many months
on the road of time, that period of frolic and recuperation gleams as
with the radiance of youth's happiest sunset scene. How strange that
happy days even never look so charming as when they are mellowed in the
deep past!...

During the days we enlivened many a bright morning hour with
boat-riding, fishing, gathering wild-flowers, and such other amusements
as this delightful place afforded. On one of these fishing excursions
one of our party came very near falling into the treacherous waters of
the lake.

Our favorite resorts, and it is so with all tourists, were Emerald and
Carnelian Bays. The former is a beautiful, land-locked arm of the lake,
walled in by rugged and towering cliffs. The latter is a long, gravelly
beach, where by the hour we have searched for carnelian stones, of which
some of the purest quality are found.

The mountains and canons are most delightful points of interest as
places of observation and rest, and often charm by the echoes they
throw back. We were given to song; and many a time summering here,
and travelling over the lake, we united in singing the "Evergreen
Mountains of Life" and "A Thousand Years," our favorite lake airs;
the former suggested, no doubt, by the towering mountains that
surrounded us. The effect is peculiarly fascinating, as the song
rings out over the waters, in the pure mountain air, and echoing
dies away, after many reverberations of "evergreen mountains of
life"--"mountains of life"--"life"--in some deep canyon. Or "a thousand
years, Columbia,"--"years, Columbia,"--"Columbia,"--the vowels of the
last becoming beautifully distinct in the echoes.

Nearly south of the head of Lake Tahoe, a distance of perhaps a mile and
a half, is a little lake that bears the name of Fallen Leaf; and then to
the west of this some three miles is Cascade Lake, as charming a little
body of water as ever flashed back the sunlight. Of all the objects of
interest here, none of its kind is more interesting than this delightful
lake, that spreads itself out a half-mile by a mile and a half, and
that at an altitude of four or five hundred feet a