dgers. But there was consolation in the sound
of Wayland, with its far call to Wayland's smithy and Walter Scott.
And--Cohocton! The name to me had a fine Cromwellian ring; and Blood's
Depot--what a truculent sound to that!--if you haven't forgotten the
plumed dare-devil cavalier who once made a dash to steal the king's
regalia from the Tower. Again--Loon Lake. Can you imagine two more
lonesome wailing words to make a picture with? But--Cohocton. How oddly
right my absurd instinct had been about that--and, shall we ever forget
the unearthly beauty of the evening which brought us at dark to the
quaint little operatic-looking village, deep and snug among the solemn,
sleeping hills?

The day had been one of those days that come perhaps only in
October--days of rich, languorous sunshine full of a mysterious
contentment, days when the heart says, "My cup runneth over," and happy
tears suddenly well to the eyes, as though from a deep overflowing sense
of the goodness of God. It was really Summer, with the fragrant mists of
Autumn in her hair. It had happened as we had hoped on starting out. We
had caught up with Summer on her way to New York, Summer all her golden
self, though garlanded with wreaths of Autumn, and about her the swinging
censers of burning weeds.

It was a wonderful valley we had caught her in, all rolling purple hills
softly folding and unfolding in one continuous causeway; a narrow valley,
and the hills were high and close and gentle, suggesting protection and
abundance and never-ending peace. Here and there the vivid green of
Winter wheat struck a note of Spring amid all the mauves and ochres of
dying things.

It was a day on which you had no wish to talk,--you were too
happy,--wanted only to wander on and on as in a dream through the mellow
vale--one of those days in which the world seems too good to be true, a
day of which we feel, "This day can never come again." It was like
walking through the Twenty-third Psalm. And, as it closed about us, as we
came to our village at nightfall, and the sunshine, like a sinking lake
of gold, grew softer and softer behind the uplands, the solid world of
rock and tree, and stubble-field and clustered barns, seemed to be
growing pure thought--nothing seemed left of it but spirit; and the hills
had become as the luminous veil of some ineffable temple of the
mysterious dream of the world.

"Puvis de Chavannes!" said Colin to me in a whisper.

And later I tried to say