hich two
of them were sitting. So the momentous question was settled, and I
commenced feeling once more a degree of confidence in my own eyesight.
The loss of such confidence is a serious discomfort; but, strange as it
may seem to people in general, I suspect that few field ornithologists,
except beginners, ever succeed in retaining it undisturbed for any long
time together. As a class, they have learned to take the familiar maxim,
"Seeing is believing," with several grains of allowance. With most of
them, it would be nearer the mark to say, Shooting is believing.

My special errand at the lakes being thus quickly disposed of, there was
no reason why I should not accompany my friend to the summit. Lafayette
gave us a cold reception. We might have addressed him as Daniel Webster,
according to the time-worn story, once addressed Mount Washington; but
neither of us felt oratorically inclined. In truth, after the outrageous
heats of the past few days, it seemed good to be thrashing our arms and
crouching behind a boulder, while we devoured our luncheon, and between
times studied the landscape. For my own part, I experienced a feeling of
something like wicked satisfaction; as if I had been wronged, and all at
once had found a way of balancing the score. The diapensia was already
quite out of bloom, although only nine days before we had thought it
hardly at its best. It is one of the prettiest and most striking of our
strictly alpine plants, but is seldom seen by the ordinary summer
tourist, as it finishes its course long before he arrives. The same may
be said of the splendid Lapland azalea, which I do not remember to have
found on Mount Lafayette, it is true, but which is to be seen in all its
glory upon the Mount Washington range, in middle or late June; so early
that one may have to travel over snow-banks to reach it. The two flowers
oftenest noticed by the chance comer to these parts are the Greenland
sandwort (the "mountain daisy"!) and the pretty geum, with its handsome
crinkled leaves and its bright yellow blossoms, like buttercups.

My sketch will hardly fulfill the promise of its title; for our June in
Franconia included a thousand things of which I have left myself no room
to speak: strolls in the Landaff Valley and to Sugar Hill; a walk to
Mount Agassiz; numerous visits--by the way, and in uncertain weather--to
Bald Mountain; several jaunts to Lonesome Lake; and wanderings here and
there in the pathless valley woo