"From Niagara, and home by the White Hills."
"And what of the last, or of both?"
"Miss Rugg has fallen into the one, and Miss Somebody has been to the top of the other. Had to be brought down, though. Women shouldn't climb mountains."
"There has been some talk of a road, or practicable path at least, to the top of Mount Washington."
"Never'll be done. Impossible on the face of the thing."
"Nothing is impossible to Yankees, Remington."
"This is. And now, Lewis, whence come you, and whither go?"
"From Weston, and to New York."
Here was a denouement! We looked at him with new interest, and saw at once, such was the force of imagination, the very eyes and eyebrows of Gus Lewis. However, it proved afterwards to be only imagination. When we told him we came from Weston only two days and a half before, the conversation assumed the native style of New England, and for the next quarter of an hour we talked of each other and each other's affairs.' Mr. Lewis was delighted to see us, had stayed only an hour in Weston, and there heard of our trip from Auguste,—profanely called Gus,—took the box of maple-sugar in charge at once, laughed at the boy-like direction without even a surname, and ended with recommending us to go at once to Miss Post's, on Broadway, where himself and his wife were at present boarding. All the particulars of life, character, and relative interests were discussed between ourselves [pg 384] and Mr. Lewis with the relish and zest of compatriots. I had forgotten how close a tie was that of Yankee birth, and how like an unknown tongue our talk was to the Englishman, till we stopped and turned to him to say something, and found him fast asleep. Then I was glad that he hadn't heard my satirical description of "donation-parties" at Weston, nor the account I gave of our two boys, our salary of five hundred dollars, and the various comical shifts we had to make to live comfortably on that sum and support aged parents and graceless relations. Little touches told Mr. Lewis the whole story. I knew very well that Mr. Remington would be entirely abroad about such a social existence as ours in Weston, travel he ever so long or widely.
Mr. Lewis had black eyes and hair, and bent like an habitual student. He had a scar on his right eyebrow, which he had got by a fall, and by which he had saved the life of Mr. Remington, who was a connection of his wife's. This he told us, afterwards, and I amused myself with drawing parallels between his face and his mind. One side was gentle, sweet-humored, sentimental, with a touch of melancholy. The other, disfigured with the scar, seemed to have been turned harsh, suspicious, proud, reserved, and unrelenting. These were many qualities, all to depend on a scar, to be sure; but they generally herd together, and he might be one man or another, as life presented its dark or sunny side to him. To me, he was very interesting, from the first; and my husband was delighted with him. The Dominie starved in Weston for congenial intellectual nutriment. Nobody but myself could tell what a drain it was on him always to impart, always to simplify, to descend, to walk on the ground with wings folded flat to his back, and the angel in him habitually kept out of view. The most he could do was to insinuate now and then a thought above the farming interest, and in a direction aside from Bombay. More than that exposed him to suspicion, and hindered his usefulness in Coös County.