[Only part of a letter; it begins at page 2, and closes midsentence, so I suspect there's at least a missing page at the end, too.]Mistress, and through a mountain pass cut out of solid rock, Thermopilae of Mass.
The mountains were unusually lovely that day. The delicate [...] of the fresh young green of the Spring and the dark of the pines was exquisite.
We soon arrived at the foot of Mt H. where we all alighted and walked up to the half way house where we were to [...] the train for the Summit House.
The path where we took the cars was indescribably [...] perpendicular.
The flaming faces and groans of the girls in their frantic efforts to reach the goal were quite amusing. We tried to induce some irrepressible small boys to wheel us up in a wheelbarrow but as they coudn't be induced, had to fall back on our own resources which as usual brought us out all right.
Our party were the first to reach the station.
I thought I would like to watch the performance before I took part in it. It was perfectly frightful to watch those girls go up, up until they disappeared in the distance & to think that the stopping of a crank or the breaking of a rope would hurl them down thousands of feet. I trembled and hesitated but by the time the car had come down, I had screwed up enough courage to clamber in with the rest and shout good bye "till we meet up above"
The going up was splendid and stirring, we forgot all our fear and every thing akin to it, and lived only in the eternal now.
When we arrived at the Summit House a fire was raging on one side of the Mt. & as the wind was blowing, it threatened the Summit Observatory. Men were working as if their lives depended on it and all was Excitement; we offered our services very gallantly, but were refused in a way that made us feel quite small. But it was grand and the fire only added a new feature to it.
On one side [of] the Mountains we could see the tongues of fire wrapping the tall [...] pines, and the the [sic] blue smoke like a hazy mantle hanging over the tops of the neighboring peaks, but below us lay the Conn. valley in the clear sunlight, with the silvery river winding in and out, and dozens of towns peeping out from the green & white of the Elms and apple blossoms, with their spires & steeples penciled against the clear blue sky. We spent the afternnon climbing over the Mt. gathering flowers and in the evening had supper up in