The season in which boarders can be secured in paying numbers is a period extending from June fifteenth to October first, with the houses filled only in the months of July and August. For this period, which is one continued strain upon the housekeepers and their aids, preparation begins as early as the month of March. The housework is generally done by the women of the family, with some employed help, of an inferior sort. The horses and carriages on the farm must be used for the transportation of guests, and for hire to those who drive for pleasure. On one farm sheep are kept; though most of the boarding-houses buy their meat supplies of the dealers mentioned below. Of late years the help employed in these boarding-houses, in addition to members of the family, has come to be negroes from Culpepper County, Virginia. These employees come each spring and return in the fall. The one Irish Catholic boarding-house is for the entertainment of the hired men on the lower part of the Hill, near the Hotel. It is maintained throughout the year, with a varying number of guests, by a woman ninety years of age, who in addition to the management, does much of the hard work herself. The conservatism of the Hill families is shown in the fact that the boarding-house business has never been extended. No house has ever been erected for that purpose alone; but the present business of that sort is carried on in the old Quaker homes, each receiving only as many paid guests as it was used to receive of its hospitable duty, when the Quarterly Meeting brought Friends from afar, once in the year. Mizzen-Top Hotel is perhaps an exception, if, indeed, a large hotel, with quarters for two hundred and fifty guests, and at prices ranging from three dollars per day up, be an exception. It has grown out of the same conditions which transformed the farmhouses into boarding-houses, save that it has never been managed at a profit, and they never at a loss. It is, however, an institution by itself, and will be treated in another place. The Mizzen-Top Hotel has always been a sober institution, influenced thereto by the pleasureless spirit of the Hill. Baseball, tennis, and golf in their times have had vogue there, but under every management it has been hard to arouse and maintain active interest in outdoor or indoor sports. The direct road to Hammersley Lake, formerly called Quaker Hill Pond, has made possible a moderate indulgence in carriage-driving. The laying out of the golf links in 1897 set going that dignified sport, just as the Wayside Path in 1880 occasioned some mild pedestrianism. But the Hotel diminishes rather than increases in its play-activities; and only games of cards retain a hold upon the guests, who prefer the piazza, the croquet ground, the tennis court, and the golf links in rapidly diminishing proportion.