and higher during

_"The long blue solemn hours, serenely flowing
Whence earth, we feel, gets steady help and good."_

Many a tourist comes home to a land like this, weary and penniless,
like Sir Launfal after his fruitless quest, to discover that the grail
of health and rest and beauty which he sought afar so strenuously is
most easily and readily found at home.

* * * * *

[Illustration: "CURVES WHICH ADD MUCH TO ITS WILD BEAUTY" (p. 23)]

Ceaselessly up and down the old road passes the pageant of the year,
never two days the same, especially at this season. In the middle of
the road is a dirt wagon-track, on either side of which is a broad
belt of grass, flowers, shrubs and small trees till you come to the
fence. Beyond one fence the thick woods has a heavy undergrowth; over
the other is a well-wooded pasture. On the south side, between the
road and the fence there is a little brook, sometimes with a high,
mossy and timbered bank, sometimes completely hidden by tall grasses.
The road rises and falls in gentle grades, with alternating banks and
swales. At one high point there is a view down the long avenue of
trees across the open valley beyond, where the city lies snugly, and
then upward to the timber on the far heights across the river where
the hills are always softly blue, no matter what the season of the
year. Sometimes the old road sweeps around fine old trees in
unmathematical curves which add much to its wild beauty. The first man
who drove along it, a hundred years or more ago, followed a cow-path