This time, instead of passing through the small vegetable garden
behind the kitchen, he skirted the clearing, coming out into the
wide, open space in front of the cottage. On one side of him, and
behind, spread the mountain woods but before him and to the right
the larger trees were down. There was a vista--for the first time
since he had sat upon a keg in the fog he forgot him-self and his
foolishness, his hunger, his aching nerves, his smarting pride,
everything! The beauty before him filled his heart and mind, leaving
not a cranny anywhere for lesser things. Blue sea, blue sky, blue
mountains, blue smoke that rose in misty spirals as from a thousand
fairy fires and, nearer, the sun-warmed, dew-drenched green--green
of the earth, green of the trees, green of the graceful, sweeping
curves of wooded point and bay. Far away, on peaks half hidden, snow
still lay--a whiteness so ethereal that the gazer caught his breath.

And with it all there was the scent of something--something so
fresh, so penetrating, so infinitely sweet--what could it be?

"Ambrosia!" said Benis Spence, unconscious that he spoke aloud.

"Balm of Gilead," said a practical voice beside him. "It smells like
that in the bud, you know."

"Does it?" The professor's tone was dreamy. "Honey and wine--that's
what it's like--honey and wine in the wilderness! You didn't tell me
it would be like this," he added, turning abruptly to his companion
of the night before.

"How could I tell what it would be like--to you?" asked the girl.
"It's different for everyone. I've known people stand here and think