This lasted for a matter of half an hour. Then a sound of wheels caused me to turn my head. Yes, a pair of gray horses and a covered carriage, with a white net protruding behind,--an entomological flag well known to all Franconia dwellers in summer time, one of the institutions of the valley. A hand was waved, and in another minute I was being carried toward Bethlehem, all my pedestrian plans forgotten. I was becoming that disreputable thing, an opportunist. But what then! As I remarked just now, “It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.” In vacation days the wisest of us may go with the wind. A pile of decaying logs by the roadside soon tempted the insect collector to order a halt. She was brought up, as I have heard her say regretfully, on the stern New England doctrine that time once past never returns, and she is still true to her training. We stripped the bark from log after log, but uncovered nothing worth while (such beetles as the unprofessional assistant turned up being damned without hesitation as “common”) except two little mouse-colored, red-bellied snakes, each with two or three spots on the back of its head. One of these pretty creatures the collector proceeded to mesmerize by rubbing its crown gently with a stick. “See! he enjoys it,” she said; and if thrusting out the tongue is a sign of enjoyment, no doubt he was in something like an ecstasy. _Storeria occipitomaculata_, the books call him. Short snakes, like small orchids, are well pieced out with Latinity. I would not disturb the savor of raspberries by trying just then to put my tongue round that specific designation, though it goes trippingly enough with a little practice, and is plain enough in its meaning. One did not need to be a scholar, or to look twice at the snake, to see that its occiput was maculated. At the top of the hill--for we took the first turn to the left--“creation widened,” and we had before us a magnificent prospect westward, with many peaks of the Green Mountains beyond the valley. Atmosphere so transparent as to-day’s was not made for nothing. Insects and even raspberries were for the moment out of mind. There was glory everywhere. We looked at it, but when we talked it was mostly of trifles: the bindweed, the goldenrod, a passing butterfly, a sparrow. Those who are really happy are often pleased to speak of matters indifferent. Sometimes I think it is those who only _wish_ to be happy who deal in superlatives and exclamations.