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groaned the major. "Heaven save me from attempting the ascension! Can we do nothing better than tear our clothes and bruise our shins among brushwood and bridle-paths; clambering up to the sky just to stare about us a few moments, and then tumbling down headlong, as it were, to the valleys again?" "Well," said Edgar, "if the Great Haystack intimidates you, suppose we ride up through the Notch, and visit the 'Old Man.'" "What old man?" asked the major. "The Old Man of the Mountain!" "I should have no objection to calling on the old fellow," returned Major Howard, "if he did not live on a mountain; but I cannot think of climbing up any more of these prodigious steeps,--even to see a king in his regal palace." A burst of laughter followed the major's misapprehension of the object which Lindenwood had proposed to visit. "It is not a man of flesh and blood we are to see, father," said Florence, as soon as she could command her voice sufficiently to speak, "but a granite profile, standing out from a peak of solid rock, exactly resembling the features of a man's face; whence its name, 'Old Man of the Mountain.'" "Ay, that's all, then!" said the major, referring to his guidebook. "I shall be very glad of the privilege of standing on the ground for once and looking up at an object; for I confess it afflicts my kindly-affectioned nature to be forever looking down upon this goodly earth, as if in disdainful contempt of its manifold beauties. So, to-morrow, ladies and gentlemen," added he, rising, "we are to pay our respects to this 'Old Man.' I hear music below. You young people would like to join the merry groups, I suppose. I'm going down to the office to enjoy a cigar, and then retire, for my old bones are sadly racked with the jaunts of to-day. Good-night to you all." Thus saying, he walked away. "Would you like to join the dancers, Ellen?" asked Florence, turning to the fair girl who sat in a rocking-chair by the window, gazing out on the moon-lit earth. "I don't care to join the dance," she returned; "but I would like to go and listen to the music a while." "Then let us go," said her brother; "that is, if agreeable to Miss Florence and Mr. Lindenwood." "I shall be happy to accompany you, Miss Howard," said he, offering Florence his arm, which she accepted, and the party descended to the parlors. They were well-lighted, and filled with guests. Edward and Ellen soon became exhilarated by the music, a
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