of summer had been the hot, hard pavements and stifling dust of a
large city.

She had never before extended her wanderings in the direction of Mill
Bank Farm so far as to reach the ravine through which the little
stream flowed into the river; and now, when she came to the edge of
the steep slope and looked down into the luxuriant depth of foliage
and fern and ragged moss-clad rock, she felt a sense of delight more
intense than Bessie Ford or Lucy Raymond, familiar all their lives
with such scenes, had ever experienced. She stood spell-bound at
first, and then, scrambling down among rock and fern, reached the
little stream, and was soon wading about in its bed, enjoying the
sensation of the soft, warm water flowing over her bare feet, and
pulling the little flowering water-plants that raised their heads
among the moss-grown logs and stones which lay in the bed of the
stream. Then she began to climb up on the other side, stopping to
examine with admiring eyes every velvety cushion of moss, and cluster
of tiny ferns, and fairy-like baby pine or maple, and picking with
eager hands the wild roses and other blossoms which she espied among
the tangled underwood.

At last, tired with her wanderings, and with hands full of her
treasures, she threw herself down on a bed of dry moss that carpeted
the top of a high bank of rock which overlooked the river winding away
beneath, while overhead, through the feathery sprays of the long,
straggling pine boughs, the slanting sunbeams flickered on the turf
below.

There, in that solitary stillness--all the stiller for the confused
murmur of soft sounds, and the fresh, sweet breath of the woods