Spite of the sometimes rapid speed, the toil up the mountain had been long and tedious; and dusk was very nearly falling and the chill of the coming evening was sufficient to induce the drawing close of mantles and wrappers that only two hours before had been reckoned an incumbrance,--when the coaches with their loads broke out from the overhanging woods on a steep down-grade, the passengers caught a glimpse of Echo Lake lying like a sheet of molten silver under the evening calm, and the whole cortege swept down at a gallop and with cracking of whips, to the broad, level plateau lying before the Profile House in the Franconia Notch. Two of the coaches had been in advance of that to which the attention of the reader has been particularly directed, and still other coaches had just come in from Plymouth, the Glen and the Crawford; so that when they drew up to alight the long piazza of the Profile was filled with sojourners satisfying their curiosity or looking out for fresh arrivals; and coachmen, servants and every employee of the establishment, were busy hauling down from the racks and boots where they had been stowed, immense piles of trunks, valises and every description of baggage that had not been entrusted to the van yet lumbering behind. Landlord Taft and superintendent Jennings were alert and busy; old comers were curious as to the number and nature of new arrivals; new comers were glancing momentarily at the glorious scenery and anxiously inquiring every thing of everybody who knew no more of the things inquired about than did the askers themselves. All was charming bustle--delightful confusion: one of those peculiar scenes connected with summer travel and watering-place life, which furnish the very best of opportunities for study to the quiet observer. The coach door had been opened and all the inside passengers handed out, before the merry party from the roof made any attempt at getting down. Peal after peal of hearty laughter went up from that outside division of the vehicle; and evidently the party there assembled had reached the Profile before achieving the end of the jests and story-telling in which they had been engaged. They had already attracted some attention from the piazza, and one boarding-school miss had been appealed to by her eye-glassed swain in attendance, to "heah those awful vulgah fellahs!"--when the laughter ceased, and one of the roof-passengers made a sudden spring from that elevation, over the heads of half a dozen of those standing on the ground, and came safely to his feet with a jerk which would have laid up a less perfect physical man for a week and completely shaken out the false teeth from the mouth of any victim of a dentist. The rapid man was followed by his companions, Frank Vanderlyn included among the number; but they all seemed to choose the more popular mode of getting down, by the aid of steps and braces.