and patched up, as if it had been much landed on, but there it is, and there it will remain a witness to a great historic event, unless somebody takes a notion to cart it off uptown again.  It is said to rest on another rock, of which it formed a part before its unfortunate journey, and that lower rock as everybody knows, rests upon the immutable principle of self-government.  The stone lies too far from the water to enable anybody to land on it now, and it is protected from vandalism by an iron grating.  The sentiment of the hour was disturbed by the advent of the members of a baseball nine, who wondered why the Pilgrims did not land on the wharf, and, while thrusting their feet through the grating in a commendable desire to touch the sacred rock, expressed a doubt whether the feet of the Pilgrims were small enough to slip through the grating and land on the stone.  It seems that there is nothing safe from the irreverence of American youth.

Has any other coast town besides Plymouth had the good sense and taste to utilize such an elevation by the water-side as an esplanade?  It is a most charming feature of the village, and gives it what we call a foreign air.  It was very lovely in the afterglow and at moonrise.  Staid citizens with their families occupied the benches, groups were chatting under the spreading linden-tree at the north entrance, and young maidens in white muslin promenaded, looking seaward, as was the wont of Puritan maidens, watching a receding or coming Mayflower.  But there was no loud talking, no laughter, no outbursts of merriment from the children, all ready to be transplanted to the Puritan heaven!  It was high tide, and all the bay was silvery with a tinge of color from the glowing sky.  The long, curved sand-spit-which was heavily wooded when the Pilgrims landed-was silvery also, and upon its northern tip glowed the white sparkle in the lighthouse like the evening-star.  To the north, over the smooth pink water speckled with white sails, rose Captain Hill, in Duxbury, bearing the monument to Miles Standish.  Clarke’s Island (where the Pilgrims heard a sermon on the first Sunday), Saguish Point, and Gurnett Headland (showing now twin white lights) appear like a long island intersected by thin lines of blue water.  The effect of these ribbons of alternate sand and water, of the lights and the ocean (or Great Bay) beyond, was exquisite.

Even the unobtrusive tavern at the rear of the esplanade, ancient, feebly lighted, and inviting, added something to the picturesqueness of the scene.  The old tree by the gate—­an English linden—­illuminated by the street lamps and the moon, had a mysterious appearance, and the tourists were not surprised to learn that it has a romantic history.  The story is that the twig or sapling from which it grew was brought over from England by a lover as a present to his mistress, that the lovers quarreled almost immediately, that the girl in a pet threw it out of the window when she sent her lover out of the door,