feathery grass almost unbearably beautiful with soft glittering dew and
opal mists, out of which rose spectral elms, like the shadows of gigantic
Shanghai roosters. All about was the sound of brooks musically rippling
from the hills, and there was a chaste chill in the air, as befitted the
time of day, for

_Maiden still the morn is, and strange she is, and secret,
Her cheeks are cold as cold sea-shells_.

It was all so beautiful that an old thought came back to me that I often
had as a child, when I used to be taken among mysterious mountains, for
Summer holidays: Do people really live in such beautiful places all the
year round? Do they live there just like ordinary people in towns, go
about ordinary businesses, live ordinary lives? It seemed to me then, as
it seems to me still, that such places should be kept sacred, like
fairyland, or should, at least, be the background of high and romantic
action, like the scenery in operas. To think of a valley so beautiful as
that through which we were walking being put to any other use than that
of beauty seems preposterous; but do you know what that beautiful valley
was doing, while Colin and I were thus poetizing it, adoring its
outlines and revelling in its tints? It was just quietly growing
potatoes. Yes! we had mostly passed through the apple country. This
garden of Eden, this Vale of Enna, was a great potato country. And we
learned, too, that its inhabitants were by no means so pleased with
beautiful Cohoctori Valley as we were. Here, we gathered, was another
beautiful ne'er-do-well of Nature, too occupied with her good looks to be
fit for much else than prinking herself out with wild-flowers, and
falling into graceful attitudes before her mirror--and there were mirrors
in plenty, many streams and willows, in Cohocton Valley; everywhere, for
us, the mysterious charm of running water. Once this idle daughter of