The village itself is grouped in careless ease along the steep and bushy slopes of the valley, straggling about and abounding in miniature chalets, precisely as a mountain village ought to do. The Fontaine-qui-Bouille, full of the sprightliness of its youth in Ute Pass, and its escapade at Rainbow Falls, comes dashing and splashing, and singing its happy song:
“I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles;
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.”
A GLIMPSE OF MANITOU AND PIKE’S PEAK.
Down close to this frolicsome, icy-cold stream, are built the larger hotels, the Beebee and Manitou, surrounded by groves of cottonwood, aspen, wild cherry and box elder. They are cheery, clean, homelike, and handsomely furnished. The broad piazzas afford the finest views of Pike’s Peak, Cameron’s Cone, and their confreres. Here gather the “beauty and chivalry” of many climes, and in the long, soft evenings, devoid of dew or moisture, the cozy nooks offer the seclusion for—we had nearly said, flirtation—or cool refuge from the heated dancing-hall. Rustic bridges cross the brook, leading into a labyrinth of shade and on up to the crags behind. At the rear of the hotels, Lover’s Lane, a most romantic ramble, starts out in a half-mile maze through arbors, and flowering shrubs, and over little precipices, for the springs. Beside the path, and in out of-the-way spots among the bushes, are alluring seats, only large enough for two, where you may sit, while at your feet the selfsame brooklet murmurs:
“I steal by lawns and grassy plots;