But the glories of the Notch are not fully seen, unless the tourist visit it when that unrivaled colorist, Jack Frost, has lavished upon its foliage the hues of his gorgeous pallet--their tempered brilliancy glowing through the voluptuous haze of autumn! What a singular contrast the opposite sides of the Notch then present! Eagle Cliff allows no motley-dressed dandies to vegetate upon his stern crags--exclusively a mass of granite and sombre evergreens; and the hemlock-covered eastern wall into which he extends, has its funereal vestments only here and there _slashed_ with stripes of bright yellow birches that mark the mountain torrents and land-slides. But Frost, the artist, has a fairer field for his brush on the opposite side, where the rich rolling groves of the Profile Mountain present a bravely variegated mantle descending from the very neck of the "Old Man," who, with grim visage, unmoved by so rare "a coat of many colors," seems as indisposed as ever to bend down that obstinate chin and take a look at himself and his finery in the lake lying like a mirror at his feet! And even after the glory of the leaf has passed, it is well worth a trip to see these peaks in their cloudy costume, when the wind howls through the defile with a force shaking the hemlock "moored in the rifted rock," but not silencing the muffled roar of the unseen mountain torrents. Nor as one of the attractions of a late season must be omitted the chance of seeing Lafayette peering with whitened head over his clansmen's shoulders, while perhaps the defile reposes in groves of bright and brilliant foliage. But in spite of splendid foliage, and fresh, bracing weather, but few tourists visit the Franconia Notch when in its heightened glory. The artist, the wood-cutter, and the _partridge_ have it chiefly to themselves, and so "mine host" of the Lafayette House shuts up his best rooms, brings from one lake his oars, from the other his swivel, and that other echo-waking instrument--the long _tin horn_, now "hangs silent on the wall," until the hot weather of next summer brings the crowds of travelers who know not _when_ to travel. This scant attendance of tourists during the finest season of the year may be attributed to a false impression that because this Notch is confessedly one of the coldest spots in America in winter, it must be disagreeably cold during the early autumn. This is a mistake; the weather there being quite as mild till the close of October as it is in the open lower country. [Illustration: EAGLE CLIFF.]