we are at the summit, in front of the hospitable looking Tip Top House.
We are standing at an altitude of over six thousand feet above the sea,
or to be exact, 6,293 feet, according to Professor Guyot, on the highest
point of land with one exception east of the Rocky Mountains.

"Isn't the thought inspiring," I remarked to my companions, "that we are
on the highest land for which our fathers fought a century ago?"

"And is it not the theme the _ultima thule_ of grandeur in an
artist's pilgrimage?" said Molly. "What a prospect! The plains of
Canada, the forests of Maine, the mountains of New York, and I really
believe the sea, if I mistake not that faint blue line in the far
distance over the billowy land! What a grand spectacle a sunrise or a
sunset would be, viewed from this height!"

[Illustration: MOUNT MORIAH, IN GORHAM.]

The next morning we saw the sun start from its bed in the Orient,
swathed in radiant clouds and vapors, and rise up behind the eastern
range of hills; we had never seen anything so beautiful and striking
before, and the scene is one which neither pen can describe nor pencil
portray. Our memory will not fail to cherish it as the choicest
revelation to be seen in a life time.

[Illustration: ECHO LAKE.]

"Do you know it was just one hundred years ago this very year, 1784,
Mount Washington received its name?" asked Fritz. "Well it was, and
eight years later Captain Eleazar Rossbrook penetrated into the heart of
the mountains and made a clearing where the Fabyan House now stands. His