hat it will be possible to enjoy any
intimate intercourse with this family. Unless they are of a different
order from what they seem, we cannot have much in common; but I am sure
they mean to be kind, and they will let us be happy in our own way. Oh,
what mornings you and I will have together in those woods! Did you ever
see anything so soft as they look--in this light?"

"And the bend of the river glittering there! Here, a little more this
way, and you will see it as I do. The moon is not at the full yet; the
river will be like this for some nights to come."

"And these rides and drives,--I hope nothing will prevent our going
through the whole list of them. What is the matter, Margaret? Why are
you so cool about them?"

"I think all the pleasure depends upon the companionship, and I have
some doubts about that. I had rather sit at work in a drawing-room all
day, than go among mountains with people--"

"Like the Mansons; Oh, that spreading of shawls, and bustle about the
sandwiches, before they could give a look at the waterfall! I am afraid
we may find something of the same drawback here."

"I am afraid so."

"Well, only let us get out into the woods and lanes, and we will manage
to enjoy ourselves there. We can contrive to digress here and there
together without being missed. But I think we are judging rather
hastily from what we saw this evening even about this family; and we
have no right to suppose that all their acquaintance are like them."

"No, indeed; and I am sure Mr Hope, for one, is of a different order.
He dropped one thing, one little saying, which proved this to my mind."

"I know what you mean--about the old man that is to be our guide over
that heath they were talking of--about why that heath is a different and
more beautiful place to him than to us, or to his former self. Is it
not true, what he said?"

"I am sure it is true. I have little to say of my own experience, or
wisdom, or goodness, whichever it was that he particularly meant as
giving a new power of sight to the old man; but I know that no tree
waves to my eye as it did ten years ago, and the music of running water
is richer to my ear as every summer comes round."

"Yes; I almost wonder sometimes whether all things are not made at the
moment by the mind that sees them, so wonderfully do they change with
one's mood, and according to the store of thoughts they lay open in
one's mind. If I lived in a desert island (suppo