ss are gone, the long strain of
nerve and will relaxed; a delicious feeling of having strength and time
enough to live one's life and do one's work fills one with a deep and
enduring sense of repose.

Rosalind, who had been busy about so many things that I sometimes
almost lost sight of her for days together, found time to take long
walks with me, to watch the birds and the clouds, and talk by the hour
about all manner of pleasant trifles. I came to feel after a time that
just what I anticipated would happen in Arden had happened. I was fast
becoming acquainted with her. We spent days together in the most
delightful half-vocal and half-silent fellowship; leaving everything to
the mood of the hour and the place. Our walks took us sometimes into
lovely recesses, where mutual confidences seemed as natural as the air;
sometimes into solitudes where talk seemed an impertinence, and we were
silent under the spell of rustling leaves and thrilling melodies coming
from we knew not what hidden minstrelsy. But whether silent or
speaking, we were fast coming to know each other. I saw many traits in
her, many characteristic habits and movements which I had never noted
before; and I was conscious that she was making similar discoveries in
me. These mutual revelations absorbed us during our first days in the
Forest; and they confirmed the impression which I brought with me that
half the charm of people is lost under the pressure of work and the
irritation of haste. We rarely know our best friends on their best
side; our vision of their noblest selves is constantly obscured by the
mists of preoccupation and weariness.

In Arden life is pitched on the natural key; nobody is ever hurried;
nobody is ever interrupted; nobody carries his work like a pack on his
back instead of leaving it behind him as the sun leaves the earth when
the day is over and the calm stars shine in the unbroken silence of the
sky. Rosalind and I were entirely conscious of the transformation
going on within us, and were not slow to submit ourselves to its
beneficent influence. We felt that Arden would not put all its
resources into our hand until we had shaken off the dust and parted
from the fret of the world we had left behind.

In those first inspiring days we went oftenest to the heart of the
pines, where the moss grew so deep that our movements were noiseless;
where the light fell in subdued and gentle tones among the closely
clustered trees; and w