eastern shore. As we drew near, we found that the tumbled fragments of
rock had been arranged, with great labor, to form a capacious foot-path
around the base of the island. The steamers drew up against this narrow
quay, upon which we landed, under a granite wall which rose
perpendicularly to the height of seventy or eighty feet. The firs on the
summit grew out to the very edge and stretched their dark arms over us.
Every cranny of the rock was filled with tufts of white and pink
flowers, and the moisture, trickling from above, betrayed itself in long
lines of moss and fern.

I followed the pilgrims around to the sunny side of the island, and
found a wooden staircase at a point where the wall was somewhat broken
away. Reaching the top of the first ascent, the sweet breath of a spring
woodland breathed around me. I looked under the broken roofage of the
boughs upon a blossoming jungle of shrubs and plants which seemed to
have been called into life by a more potent sun. The lily of the valley,
in thick beds, poured out the delicious sweetness of its little cups;
spikes of a pale-green orchis emitted a rich cinnamon odor; anemones,
geraniums, sigillarias, and a feathery flower, white, freckled with
purple, grew in profusion. The top of the island, five or six acres in
extent, was a slanting plane, looking to the south, whence it received
the direct rays of the sun. It was an enchanting picture of woodland
bloom, lighted with sprinkled sunshine, in the cold blue setting of the
lake, which was visible on all sides, between the boles of the trees. I
hailed it as an idyl of the North,--a poetic secret, which the Earth,
even where she is most cruelly material and cold, still tenderly hides
and cherishes.

A peasant, whose scarlet shirt flashed through the bushes like a sudden
fire, seeing me looking at the flowers, gathered a handful of lilies,