We went down to the margin of the lake, and a few rods from the shore lay a little craft like our own, in which were seated two gentlemen, the one with a flute and the other with a violin.  They had seen our campfire from their shanty on the other side of the lake, and had crossed over to surprise us with the melody of human music.  And pleasantly indeed it sounded in the stillness and repose of that summer night in that wild region.  The echoes that dwell among those old forests, those hills and beautiful lakes, had never been startled from their slumbers by such sounds before, and right merrily they carried them from hill to hill, and through the old woods, and over the calm surface of that sleeping lake, and with a joyousness, too, that told how welcome they were among those wild and primeval things.

After listening to their music for half an hour, we invited our new friends ashore.  We found them to be two young gentlemen from Philadelphia, who had just graduated at one of the Eastern colleges, and who had concluded to spend a month among these mountains and lakes, before entering upon the study of the profession to which they were to devote themselves.  They had been close friends from their childhood, and room-mates during their collegiate course.  They had cultivated their taste for music, until few mere amateurs could equal their skill upon their respective instruments, or in harmony of voice.  They were highly intelligent and courteous gentlemen, and if their future shall equal the promise of the present, they will make their mark in the world.  We accepted, at parting, their invitation to breakfast with them on the morrow, and at one o’clock they left us to return to their shanty over the lake.  We sent one of our boatmen to row them home; and as they started across the water, they treated us to a concert to which it was pleasant to listen.  There is something surpassingly sweet in the music of the flute and violin in the hands of skillful performers; and yet, to my thinking, it falls far short of the melody of the human voice.  I have listened to some of the most celebrated singers, and of the most distinguished performers, but it appears to me now, that I never, on any other occasion, heard the melody of the human voice, or instrumental music half so enchanting, as that which came floating over the lake on that calm summer night.  There was a volume and compass about it which can never be reached in a concert room.  It was not loud, but it seemed to fill all the air with its sweetness.  It came over the senses like a pleasant dream, as it went swelling up to the hills that skirted the lake, floating away over the water, and dying away in lengthened cadence in the old forests.  Every other sound was hushed; the voices of the night-birds were stilled; even the frogs along the shore suspended their bellowing, and all nature seemed listening to the new harmony that thus fell like enchantment upon the repose of midnight.  The music grew fainter and fainter