e should throw the book away when he arrives at this page,
it is only fair to tell him that there is another and a much longer love
story later on, if he will only continue to read, in which, it is hoped,
he may not be disappointed.

The hills seem to leap up against the sky as I describe that region
where Cynthia Ware was born, and the very old country names help to
summon up the picture. Coniston Mountain, called by some the Blue
Mountain, clad in Hercynian forests, ten good miles in length, north and
south, with its notch road that winds over the saddle behind the withers
of it. Coniston Water, that oozes out from under the loam in a hundred
places, on the eastern slope, gathers into a rushing stream to cleave
the very granite, flows southward around the south end of Coniston
Mountain, and having turned the mills at Brampton, idles through meadows
westward in its own green valley until it comes to Harwich, where it
works again and tumbles into a river. Brampton and Harwich are rivals,
but Coniston Water gives of its power impartially to each. From the
little farm clearings on the western slope of Coniston Mountain you can
sweep the broad valley of a certain broad river where grew (and grow
still) the giant pines that gave many a mast to King George's navy as
tribute for the land. And beyond that river rises beautiful Farewell
Mountain of many colors, now sapphire, now amethyst, its crest rimmed
about at evening with saffron flame; and, beyond Farewell, the emerald
billows of the western peaks catching the level light. A dozen little
brooks are born high among the western spruces on Coniston to score
deep, cool valleys in their way through Clovelly township to the broad
music of the water and fresh river-valleys full of the music of the
water and fresh with the odor of the ferns.

To this day the railroad has not reached Coniston Village--nay, nor
Coniston Flat, four miles nearer Brampton. The village lies on its own
little shelf under the forest-clad slope of the mountain, and in the
midst of its dozen houses is the green triangle where the militia used
to drill on June days. At one end of the triangle is the great pine mast
that graced no frigate of George's, but flew the stars and stripes
on many a liberty day. Across the road is Jonah Winch's store, with a
platform so high that a man may step off his horse directly on to it;
with its checker-paned windows, with its dark interior smelling of
coffee and apples and