But the presence of this funereal influence could not destroy the gayety of the younger members, and Jim Fellows seemed to exert himself particularly to whip up such a froth and foam of merriment and jollity as caused the day to be remembered as one of the gayest in our annals. We had but one day's ride in the cars to bring us up to the old simple stage route of the mountain country. During this said day in the cars, under the tutelage of my Empress, I was made to behave myself with the grimmest and most stately reserve of manner. Scarcely was I allowed the same seat with her, and my conversation with her, so far as could be observed, was confined to the most unimpassioned and didactic topics. The reason for this appeared to be that having married in the very matrimonial month of June, and our track lying along one of the great routes of fashionable travel, we were beset behind and before by enraptured couples, whose amiable artlessness in the display of their emotions appeared particularly shocking to her taste. On the row of seats in front of us could be seen now a masculine head lolling confidentially on a feminine shoulder, and again in the next seat an evident bridal bonnet leaning on the bosom of the beloved waistcoat of its choice in sweet security. "It is perfectly disgusting and disagreeable," she said in my ear. "My dear," I replied, "I don't see as we can do anything about it." "I don't see--I cannot imagine how people can make such a show of themselves," she said. "Well, you see," said I, "we are all among the _parvenus_ of married life. It isn't everybody that knows how to behave as if he had always been rich--let us comfort ourselves with reflections on our own superiority." The close of the day brought us, however, to the verge of the mountain region where railroads cease and stages begin,--the beautiful country, of hard, flinty, rocky roads, of pines and evergreens of silvery cascades and brooks of melted crystal, and of a society, as yet homely and heart-some, and with a certain degree of sylvan innocence. At once we seemed to have left the artificial world behind us--the world of observers and observed. We sat together on the top of the stage, and sailed like two birds of the air through the tree-tops of the forest, looking down into all the charming secrets of woodland ways as we went on, and feeling ourselves delivered from all the spells and incantations of artificial life. We might have been two squirrels, or a pair of robins, or blue birds. We ceased to think how we appeared. We forgot that there were an outer world and spectators, and felt ourselves taken in and made at home in the wide hospitality of nature. Highland, where my mother lived, was just within a day's ride of the finest part of the White Mountains. The close of a charming leisurely drive upward brought us at night to her home, and I saw her sweet face of welcome at the door to meet us, and gave her new daughter to her arms with confident pride.