unkempt and overgrown with weeds. The house itself,--a small cottage with
a wide porch across the front and on the side to the west,--unpainted for
many seasons, was tinted by the brush of the elements, a soft and restful
gray.

But the artist and his friend, as they approached, exclaimed aloud at the
beauty of the scene; for, as if rejoicing in their freedom from restraint,
the roses had claimed the dwelling, so neglected by man, as their own. Up
every post of the porch they had climbed; over the porch roof, they spread
their wealth of color; over the gables, screening the windows with
graceful lattice of vine and branch and leaf and bloom; up to the ridge
and over the cornice, to the roof of the house itself--even to the top of
the chimney they had won their way--and there, as if in an ecstasy of
wanton loveliness, flung, a spray of glorious, perfumed beauty high into
the air.

On the front porch, the men turned to look away over the gentle slope of
the orange groves, on the other side of the road, to the towering peaks
and high ridges of the mountains--gleaming cold and white in the winter of
their altitude. To the northeast, San Bernardino reared his head in lonely
majesty--looking directly down upon the foothills and the feeble dwellers
in the valley below. Far beyond, and surrounded by the higher ridges and
peaks and canyons of the range, San Gorgonio sat enthroned in the
skies--the ruler of them all. From the northeast, westward, they viewed
the mighty sweep of the main range to Cajon Pass and the San Gabriels,
beyond, with San Antonio, Cucamonga, and their sister peaks lifting their
heads above their fellows. In the immediate landscape, no house or
building was to be seen. The dark-green mass of the orange groves hid
every work of man's building between them and the tawny foothills save the
gable and chimney of a neighboring cottage on the west.