We have all been walking, in the lowering twilight, on the turnpike, which is making by a joint-stock company, up Mount Washington, The road, by contract, is to be finished in three years; the cost is estimated at sixty-three thousand dollars. The workmen, of course, are nearly all Irishmen, with Anglo-Saxon heads to direct them. The road is, as far as possible, to be secured by frequent culverts, and by macadamizing it, from the force of winter torrents. But that nothing is impossible to modern science, it would seem impossible to vanquish the obstacles to the enterprise, the inevitable steepness of the ascent, the rocky precipices, etc. We amused ourselves with graduating the intellectual development of the Celtic workmen by their answers to our questions: 'When is the road to be finished?' 'And, faith, sir, it must be done before winter comes, down below.' The next replied: 'When the year comes round.' And another: 'Some time between now and niver.' 'Friend,' said I to one of them, 'have you such high mountains in Ireland?' 'Yis, indeed, that we have, and higher--five miles high!' Paddy is never over-crowed. 'Straight up?' I asked. 'By my faith and troth, straight up, it is.' 'In what part of Ireland is that mountain?' 'In county Cork.' 'Of course, in county Cork!' said my father, and we passed on through the _debris_ of blasted rocks, stumps of uprooted trees, and heaps of stones, till we got far enough into the mountain to feel the sublimity of its stern, silent solitude, with the night gathering its shroud of clouds about it, and we were glad to pick our way back to our cheerful tea-table at Mr. Thompson's. We had a long evening before us, but we diversified it (my father hates monotony, and was glad of 'something different,' as he called it) by bowling--my father pitting Alice against me. She beat me, according to her general luck in life. * * * * *