By the way, there were notices posted up in these cars, which reminded us that we were near the English Provinces, and under their influence. The notices ran thus: 'Gentlemen are requested not to put their feet on the cushions, and not to spit on the floor, and to maintain a respectable cleanliness. The Conductors are required to enforce these requests.' Must we wait for the millennium to see a like request and like enforcement in our own cars?
We found ourselves surrounded by intelligent people of the country--_habitués_ who gave us all the local information we asked, told us when we came to 'Bryant's Pond,' and that the poor little shrunken stream that still brawled and fretted in its narrowed channel, along which we were gliding, was the Androscoggin. At Gorham, but seven miles from the Glen-House, we found a wagon awaiting passengers, 'the last of the season,' we were told. 'The houses are all closed,' (he spoke technically) added our driver, 'and the cold has already been so tedious that the _bubble_ has burst on Mt. Washington.' 'What! the bubble! What means the man?' exclaimed my father. 'Oh!' said I, 'it is only a poor joke upon some 'nothing venture, nothing have' people who have come here since the company season is past, they have told them the bulb had burst.' 'Oh! the bulb! the bulb!' exclaimed my father; 'oh! that's it, and I don't in the least doubt it' And as we went on slowly making the long ascent, he looked 'sagely sad.' However, Alice was, as she always can be, 'bright without the sun,' and my father kindly protested that the slight sprinkling that, ever and anon, reminded us of our exposure in an open wagon, was no annoyance to him, and he even responded to our exclamations of delight at the wreaths of mist that floated around the mountains, and dropped over their summits, so that our imaginations were not kept in abeyance by definite outlines, and we were at liberty to fancy them just as high as we wished them. The air was as soft as in the early days of September, and our steeds very considerately lingered, thus prolonging our pleasure, so that we came into the Glen-House with keen appetites, a needful blessing, we thought, when Mr. Thompson, its host, said: 'We are not prepared for company in October, and I don't know that we shall find any thing but pork and beans to give you!' My father looked blank, and blanker yet when we were ushered into a parlor where, instead of finding the crackling wood-fire that we had fancied indigenous in these mountains, there was one of those frightful black stoves that have expelled from our life all the poetry of the hearthstone--but, courage, we can open the stove-door, and see a sparkle of light and life.