before him and to the right the larger trees
were down. There was a vista--for the first time since he had sat upon
a keg in the fog he forgot him-self and his foolishness, his hunger,
his aching nerves, his smarting pride, everything! The beauty before
him filled his heart and mind, leaving not a cranny anywhere for lesser
things. Blue sea, blue sky, blue mountains, blue smoke that rose in
misty spirals as from a thousand fairy fires and, nearer, the
sun-warmed, dew-drenched green--green of the earth, green of the trees,
green of the graceful, sweeping curves of wooded point and bay. Far
away, on peaks half hidden, snow still lay--a whiteness so ethereal
that the gazer caught his breath.

And with it all there was the scent of something--something so fresh,
so penetrating, so infinitely sweet--what could it be?

"Ambrosia!" said Benis Spence, unconscious that he spoke aloud.

"Balm of Gilead," said a practical voice beside him. "It smells like
that in the bud, you know."

"Does it?" The professor's tone was dreamy. "Honey and wine--that's
what it's like--honey and wine in the wilderness! You didn't tell me it
would be like this," he added, turning abruptly to his companion of the
night before.

"How could I tell what it would be like--to you?" asked the girl. "It's
different for everyone. I've known people stand here and think of
nothing but their breakfast."

At the word "breakfast" (which had temporarily slipped from his
vocabulary) the famished professor wheeled so quickly that his knee
twisted. Miss Farr smiled, her cool and too-understanding smile.

"There's something to eat," she said. "Come in."

She did not wait for him but walked off quickly. The professor followed
more slowly. The path, even the front path, was rough (he had noticed
that last night); but the cottage, seen now with the glamour of its
outlook still in his eyes, seemed not quite so impossible as he had
thought. The grace of early spring lay upon it and all around. True, it
was small and unpainted and in bad repair, but its smallness and its
brownness seemed not out of keeping with the mountain-side. Its narrow
veranda was railed by unbarked branches from the cedars. Its walls were
rough and weather-beaten, its few windows, broad and low. The door was
open and led directly into the living room whence his hostess had
preceded him.

The marvellous scent of the morning was everywhere. The room, as he
went in, seemed full of it. Not such a