repose and charm--the charm
of familiar things that are touched with old memories, and upon whose
natural beauty there rests the reflected light of days that have become
idyllic. No one can walk along a country road over which as a boy he
heard the daily invitation of the schoolhouse bell without discovering
at every turn some loveliness never revealed save to the glance of
unforgotten youth. The path which leads to the spring has this
unfailing charm for me, and for many who have long ceased to follow its
winding course. At this season it is touched here and there by the
autumnal splendour, and fairly riots in the profusion of the
golden-rod, whose yellow plumes are lighting the retreating steps of
summer across the fields. Great masses of brilliant wood-bine cover
the stone walls and hang from the trees along the fences. The corn,
cut and stacked in orderly lines, is not without its transforming touch
of colour; and while the trees still wait for the coronation of the
year Nature seems to have passed along this path and turned it into a
royal highway. As it approaches the woods, one gets glimpses of the
village spires in the distance, and finds a new charm in this
borderland between sunlight and shadow, between solitude and the
companionship of human life. A little distance along the edges of the
woods, with an occasional detour of the path into the shades of the
forest, brings one to the spring. A great, rudely-cut stone marks the
place, and makes a kind of background for the cool, limpid pool into
which a few leaves fall from the woods, but which belongs to the open
sky and fields. There is certainly no more gentle, reposeful scene
than this; so secluded from the dust and whirl of cities and
thoroughfares, and yet so near to ancient homes, so sweet and
life-giving in its service to them, so often and so eagerly sought at
all seasons and by men of all conditions. Here oftenest come the
restless feet of children, and their shouts are almost the only sounds
that ever break this solitude.

To me there is something inexpressibly sweet and refreshing in the
familiar and yet unfailing loveliness of this place. The fields are
always peaceful, and the slow motions of the cattle grouped here and
there under the shadows of solitary trees, or of the sheep browsing in
long, irregular lines across the further meadows, give the landscape
that touch of pastoral life which unites us with Nature in the oldest
and most ho