he movement to have
him read Browning at a picnic, organized by the ladies shortly after he
came.

XII.

The picnic was held in Whitwell's Clearing, on the side of Lion's Head,
where the moss, almost as white as snow, lay like belated drifts among
the tall, thin grass which overran the space opened by the axe, and
crept to the verge of the low pines growing in the shelter of the
loftier woods. It was the end of one of Whitwell's "Tramps Home to
Nature," as he called his walks and talks with the ladies, and on this
day Westover's fellow-painter had added to his lessons in woodlore the
claims of art, intending that his class should make studies of various
bits in the clearing, and should try to catch something of its peculiar
charm. He asked Westover what he thought of the notion, and Westover
gave it his approval, which became enthusiastic when he saw the place.
He found in it the melancholy grace, the poignant sentiment of ruin
which expresses itself in some measure wherever man has invaded nature
and then left his conquest to her again. In Whitwell's Clearing the
effect was intensified by the approach on the fading wood road, which
the wagons had made in former days when they hauled the fallen timber
to the pulp-mill. In places it was so vague and faint as to be hardly a
trail; in others, where the wheel-tracks remained visible, the trees
had sent out a new growth of lower branches in the place of those lopped
away, and almost forbade the advance of foot-passengers. The ladies said
they did not see how Jeff was ever going to get through with the wagon,
and they expressed fears for the lunch he was bringing, which seemed
only too well grounded.

But Whitwell, who was leading them on, said: "You let a Durgin alone to
do a thing when he's made up his mind to it. I guess you'll have your
lunch all right;" and by the time that they had got enough of Browning
they heard the welcome sound of wheels crashing upon dead boughs and
swishing through the underbrush, and, in the pauses of these pleasant
noises, the voice of Jeff Durgin encouraging his horses. The children of
the party broke away to meet him, and then he came in sight ahead of his
team, looking strong and handsome in his keeping with the scene: Before
he got within hearing, the ladies murmured a hymn of praise to his type
of beauty; they said he looked like a young Hercules, and Westover owned
with an inward smile that Jeff had certainly made the best of him