“Cut wood!” repeats Mr. Lanier, with a rasp. He has plainly not anticipated any thing like this. “You mean that Harrison and the guide will cut it?” “I mean that it will require several axes to cut as much as we shall need,” answers Eric. “The balsam wood will not burn in small quantities.” Mr. Lanier does not volunteer to take one of these axes; he looks, on the contrary, greatly disgusted. “And you call this a pleasure-excursion?” he says. “A pleasure _exertion_ it might better be defined—don’t you think so?” asks Mrs. Cardigan, laughing. “I wondered why you were bringing axes along,” says Sylvia, turning to Charley. “And this is what it was for?” “This is what it was for,” he answers. “Now—since we are in a gypsy camp—may I ask leave to light a cigar? ‘When Juno ruffles thee, O Jupiter, try the weed’—and, according to my experience, Juno is pretty sure to ruffle one sooner or later; therefore, it is well to be provided with a weed.” “After that, you don’t deserve permission to light it,” she says, “but I suppose we can’t refuse you the privilege which we are willing to grant the others.” At this, cigars are lighted, and, when the bottle of wine has been emptied, we take our way back to the summit. There the full glory of all that we have come to see bursts upon us. How can one write of it?—how give the faintest idea of the beauty which lies below us on this September day?—how describe the sublimated fairness of the day itself in the rarefied air of this high peak? “I have never obtained so good a view before!” says Eric. “There are not a dozen days in the year when one can obtain such a view from this mountain.” “What delightful luck that we should have hit one of the dozen!” says Mrs. Cardigan. “Don’t you feel as if you overlooked the whole world, and the kingdoms thereof? O Mr. Markham, dear Mr. Markham, tell us what every thing is!” Dear Mr. Markham proceeds to comply with this moderate request, while Sylvia mounts the chimney and stands there—field-glass in hand—sweeping the horizon, as he indicates one object after another. Charley sits on the chimney at her feet, swinging his legs meditatively and smoking; Mrs. Cardigan, in her enthusiasm, takes Mr. Lanier’s arm.