that? Look, Elinor, and see if you can tell me where we are?" was
Leslie's cry, as, early next morning, she drew up her window-shade, to
look forth--on what?

Last night had lain there, underneath them, the great basin between
Starr King, behind, and the roots of that lesser range, far down, above
which the blue Lafayette uprears itself: an enormous valley, filled with
evergreen forest, over whose tall pines and cedars one looked, as if
they were but juniper and blueberry bushes; far up above whose heads the
real average of the vast mountain-country heaped itself in swelling
masses,--miles and miles of beetling height and solid breadth. This
morning it was gone; only the great peaks showed themselves, as a
far-off, cliff-bound shore, or here and there a green island in a vast,
vaporous lake. The night-chill had come down among the heights,
condensing the warm exhalations of the valley-bosom that had been shone
into all day yesterday by the long summer sun; till, when he lifted
himself once more out of the east, sending his leaping light from crest
to crest, white fallen clouds were tumbling and wreathing themselves
about the knees and against the mighty bosoms of the giants, and at
their feet the forest was a sea.

"We must dress, and we must look!" exclaimed Leslie, as the early
summons came for them. "Oh dear! oh dear! if we were only like the
birds! or if all this would wait till we get down!"

"Please drop the shade just a minute, Les. This glass is in such a
horrid light! I don't seem to have but half a face, and I can't tell
which is the up-side of that! And--oh dear! I've no _time_ to get into a
fuss!" Elinor had not disdained the beauty and wonder without; but it
was, after all, necessary to be dressed, and in a given time; and a bad