matrimony, has somewhat lost its importance since the vast Catskill
region has come to the knowledge of the world. A generation ago it was
the centre of attraction, and it was understood that going to the
Catskills was going there. Generations of searchers after immortality
have chiseled their names in the rock platform, and one who sits there
now falls to musing on the vanity of human nature and the transitoriness
of fashion. Now New York has found that it has very convenient to it a
great mountain pleasure-ground; railways and excellent roads have pierced
it, the varied beauties of rocks, ravines, and charming retreats are
revealed, excellent hotels capable of entertaining a thousand guests are
planted on heights and slopes commanding mountain as well as lowland
prospects, great and small boarding-houses cluster in the high valleys
and on the hillsides, and cottages more thickly every year dot the wild
region. Year by year these accommodations will increase, new roads
around the gorges will open more enchanting views, and it is not
improbable that the species of American known as the "summer boarder"
will have his highest development and apotheosis in these mountains.

Nevertheless Mr. King was not uninterested in renewing his memories of
the old house. He could recall without difficulty, and also without
emotion now, a scene on this upper veranda and a moonlight night long
ago, and he had no doubt he could find her name carved on a beech-tree in
the wood near by; but it was useless to look for it, for her name had
been changed. The place was, indeed, full of memories, but all chastened
and subdued by the indoor atmosphere, which impressed him as that of a
faded Sunday. He was very careful not to disturb the decorum by any
frivolity of demeanor, and he cautioned the artist on this point; but Mr.
Forbes declared that the dining-room fare kept his spirits at a proper
level. There was an old-time satisfaction in wandering into the parlor,
and resting on the haircloth sofa, and looking at the hair-cloth chairs,