"Yes, but think how odd it was to find all these tremendous peaks suddenly gone. Not a mountain in sight in any direction. But then, the thunder. Oh! that was grand. The way it rolls about and reverberates gives one a good idea of a great battle. There was something afterwards that carried out this similarity, too, which I wish I could describe. It was after the storm had passed and the bright-setting sun shone forth. Try to see the picture. Imagine yourself sitting just where I am now, and looking toward the Presidential Range, the sun setting red behind us. Mount Washington had shaken the clouds from his head, and was encircled by a gorgeous halo, in the form of a brilliant double rainbow. One end of it seemed to come up right out of the valley there, whilst the other disappeared behind Starr King Mountain. The flying clouds, still black and heavy, whirled swiftly along, hanging low, and, with the sun approaching the horizon, made shifting shadows across the base of Mount Washington, whilst between the rifts the red rays of the sun striking different parts made beauteous timings among the green and the brown of trees and rock. Oh, if an artist could only have seen that. But then it would have been useless, for the hand of man could not paint such grandeur. It was in the foreground that the resemblance to the battle-field was to be seen again. Every here and there stray bits of clouds disentangled themselves from the treetops and rose up smoke-like till one could imagine them to be from thousands of camp-fires. Oh! it was simply wonderful." "It was indeed," said Mr. Thauret; "and your description brings it all back again to me." "Then the beautiful long twilight," Dora continued, almost unheeding, "that was lovely. Slowly these stray bits of mist met and joined others, till as the darkness came and the moon brightened, that beautiful sheet of water, for after all your lake is real water, accumulated, and there it is. At least you can enjoy that." He did. But what he enjoyed more was the simple happiness of being with her. After a short time, however, he was deprived of that, for Mrs. Remsen claimed his attention, and took him up to the ball-room to introduce him to some of the many young women who were dancing with each other and with boys of fourteen for want of better partners. If Mr. Thauret annoyed Mr. Randolph by being at this resort, the former gentleman was none the more pleased at his arrival. Being left alone with Dora, and construing her present mood to be one favorable to his wooing, he determined to speak to her before the other man might find a chance. Moving his chair nearer hers, he began, getting to his subject without much circumlocution. "Miss Dora," said he, "do you recall a conversation that I had with you one day? I mean about loneliness, and the longing one has for companionship?" "Oh, yes," said she, frankly, "why? Do you wish to continue it now?"