You have never been at Wampsocket? Well, the hills sweep around in a
crescent on the northern side and four or five radiating glens
descending from them unite just above the village. The central one
leading to a waterfall (called "Minnehehe" by the irreverent young
people, because there is so little of it), is the fashionable drive and
promenade; but the second ravine on the left, steep, crooked, and
cumbered with bowlders which have tumbled from somewhere and lodged in
the most extraordinary groupings, became my favorite walk of a morning.
There was a footpath in it, well-trodden at first, but gradually fading
out as it became more like a ladder than a path, and I soon discovered
that no other city feet than mine were likely to scale a certain rough
slope which seemed the end of the ravine. With the aid of the tough
laurel-stems I climbed to the top, passed through a cleft as narrow as a
doorway, and presently found myself in a little upper dell, as wild and
sweet and strange as one of the pictures that haunt us on the brink of
sleep.

There was a pond--no, rather a bowl--of water in the centre; hardly
twenty yards across, yet the sky in it was so pure and far down that the
circle of rocks and summer foliage inclosing it seemed like a little
planetary ring, floating off alone through space. I can't explain the
charm of the spot, nor the selfishness which instantly suggested that I
should keep the discovery to myself. Ten years earlier, I should have
looked around for some fair spirit to be my "minister," but now--

One forenoon--I think it was the third or fourth time I had visited the
place--I was startled to find the dint of a heel in the earth, half-way
up the slope. There had been rain during the night, and the earth was
still moist and soft It was the mark of a woman's boot, only to be