he "saluted" her in crossing--which he
could not help doing, he said, as she was his favorite cousin, and her
cheek lay so near his own.

Fanny had blushed at this, and declared it false;--with what truth, we
have never been able to discover. The question is scarcely important.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

UP THE HILL-SIDE AND UNDER THE CHESTNUTS.

Thus leaving the sedgy stream behind, with all its brilliant ripples,
silver sands, and swaying waterflags, which made their merry music
for it, as it went along toward the far Potomac,--our joyful party
ascended the fine hill which rose beyond, mounting with every step,
above the little town of Winchester, which before long looked more
like a lark's nest hidden in a field of wheat, than what it was--an
honest border town, with many memories.

Verty and Redbud, as we have said, went first.

We have few artists in Virginia--only one great humorist with the
pencil. This true history has not yet been submitted to him. Yet we
doubt whether ever the fine pencil of Monsignor Andante Strozzi could
transfer to canvas, or the engraver's block, the figures of the maiden
and the young man.

Beauty, grace, and picturesqueness might be in the design, but the
indefinable and subtle poetry--the atmosphere of youth, and joy, and
innocence, which seemed to wrap them round, and go with them wherever
they moved--could not be reproduced.

Yet in the mere material outline there was much to attract.

Redbud, with her simple little costume, full of grace and
elegance--her slender figure, golden hair, and perfect grace of
movement, was a pure embodiment of beauty--that all-powerful beauty,
which exists alone in woman when she passes from the fairy land of
childhood, or toward the real world, pausing with reluctant feet upon
the line which separates them.

Her golden hair was secured by a bow of scarlet ribbon, her dress was
azure, the little chip hat, with its floating streamer, just fell over
her fine brow, and gave a shadowy softness to her tender smile: she
looked like some young shepherdness of Arcady, from out the old
romances, fresh, and beautiful, and happy. Poor, cold words! If even
our friend the Signor, before mentioned, could not do her justice, how
can we, with nothing but our pen!

This little pastoral queen leant on the arm of the young
Leatherstocking whom we have described so often. Verty's costume, by
dint of these outlined descriptions, must be familiar to the reader.
H