the freshness of the grass and flowers and trees about me, the
birds singing among the branches, and she sleeping sweetly
somewhere within that house with its softly defined lights and
shadows. How I wished I knew what room she occupied!

The beauties and joys of that hour were lost to every person
on the place, who were all, no doubt, in their soundest sleep. I
did not even see a dog. Quietly and stealthily stepping from
bush to hedge, I went around the house, and as I drew near the
barn I fancied I could hear from a little room adjoining it
the snores of the coachman. The lazy rascal would probably not
awaken for two or three hours yet, but I would ran no risks, and
in half an hour I had sped away.

Now I knew exactly why I was staying at the house of the
miller. I was doing so in order that I might go early in the
mornings to my own home, in which the girl I loved lay dreaming,
and that for the rest of the day and much of the night I might
think of her.

"What place in Europe," I said to myself, "could be so
beautiful, so charming, and so helpful to reflection as this
sequestered lake, these noble trees, these stretches of
undulating meadow?"

Even if I should care to go abroad, a month or two later
would answer all my purposes. Why had I ever thought of spending
five months away?

There was a pretty stream which ran from the lake and wended