a whispered conversation. The lady is doubtful,
fearful--Mr. Jinks grows more eloquent. Finally, the lady melts, and
when Mr. Jinks clasps, rapturously, the red hand hanging out, he has
triumphed.

In fifteen minutes he is on his way back to the tavern, chuckling,
shaking, and triumphant.

All is prepared.

CHAPTER LXII.

VERTY MUSES.

Let us now leave the good old town of Winchester, and go into the
hills, where the brilliant autumn morning reigns, splendid and
vigorous.

In the hills! Happy is the man who knows what those words mean; for
only the mountain-born can understand them. Happy, then, let us say,
are the mountain-born! We will not underrate the glories of the
lowland and the Atlantic shore, or close our eyes to the wealth of the
sea. The man is blind who does not catch the subtle charm of the wild
waves glittering in the sun, or brooded over by the sullen storm; but
"nigh gravel blind" is that other, whose eyes are not open to the
grand beauty of the mountains. Let us not rhapsodize, or with this
little bit of yellow ore, venture to speak of the great piles of
grandeur from whose heart it was dug up. There is that about the
mountains, with their roaring diapason of the noble pines, their
rugged summits and far dying tints, purple, and gold, and azure, which
no painter could express, had the genius of Titian and Watteau, and
the atmosphere of Poussin, to speak over its creations. No! let them
speak for themselves as all great things must--happy is he, who, by
right of birth, can understand their noble voices!

But there is the other and lesser mountain life--the life of the
hills. Autumn loves these especially, and happy, too, are they who
know the charm of the breezy hills! The hills where autumn pours her
ruddy sunshine upon lordly pines--rather call them palms!--shooting
their slender swaying trunks into the golden sea of morning, and, far
up above, waving their emerald plumes in the laughing wind;--where
the sward is fresh and dewy in the shivering delicious hunter's
morning!--where the arrow-wood and dogwood cluster crimson berries,
and the maple, alder tree and tulip, burn away--setting the dewy copse
on fire with splendor! Yes, autumn loves the hills, and pours her
brawling brooks, swarming with leaves, through thousands of hollows,
any one of which might make a master-piece on canvas. Some day we
shall have them--who knows?--and even the great mountain-ranges shall
be mastered by th