She nodded, and stood inhaling the fragrance of the garden.

"I know a path--if it still exists--where I used to go as a child.
Would you care to follow it with me?"

So they walked down to the causeway bridge spanning the outlet to
Spring Pond, turned to the right amid a tangle of milk-weed in heavy
bloom, and grapevines hanging in festoons from rock and sapling.

The path had not changed; it wound along the wooded shore of the pond,
then sloped upward and came out into a grassy upland, where it
followed the woods' edge under the cool shadow of the trees.

And as they walked she told him of her childish journeys along this
path until it reached the wooded and pebbly height of land beyond,
which is one of the vertebrae in the backbone of Long Island.

To reach that ridge was her ultimate ambition in those youthful days;
and when on one afternoon of reckless daring she had attained it, and
far to the northward she saw the waters of the great Sound sparkling
in the sun, she had felt like Balboa in sight of the Pacific, awed to
the point of prayer by her own miraculous achievement.

Where the path re-entered the woods, far down the slope, they could
hear the waters of Spring Brook flowing; and presently they could see
the clear glint of the stream; and she told him tales of alder-poles
and home-made hooks, and of dusky troutlings that haunted the woodland
pools far in the dusk of leafy and mysterious depths.

On the brink of the slope, but firmly imbedded, there had been a big
mossy log. She discovered it presently, and drew him down to a seat
beside her, taking possession of one of his arms and drawing it
closely under her own. Then she crossed one knee over the other and
looked out into the magic half-light of a woodland which, to her
childish eyes, had once seemed a vast and depthless forest. A bar of
sunlight fell across her slim shoe and ankle clothed in white, and
across the log, making the moss greener than emeralds.

From far below came pleasantly the noise of the brook; overhead leaves
stirred and whispered in the breezes; shadows moved; sun-spots waxed
and waned on tree-trunk and leaf and on the brown ground under foot. A
scarlet-banded butterfly--he they call the Red Admiral--flitted
persistently about an oak tree where the stain of sap darkened the
bark.

From somewhere came the mellow tinkle of cow-bells, which moved
Athalie to speech; and she poured out her heart to Clive on the
subject of domestic