d cottages, and lanes like green-walled
conservatories; but it is so well balanced, with its intimate
sweetnesses, and its noble outlines. I think _you_ are rather like
Devonshire, you're so perfect, and you are the most well-balanced person
I was ever introduced to--except Dad. I'm proud that his ancestors were
Devonshire men. And oh, the junket and Devonshire cream are even better
than he used to tell me! I haven't tasted the cider yet, because I can't
bear to miss the cream at any meal; and the chambermaid at Sidmouth
warned me that they "didn't mix."

Bits of Devonshire are like Italy, I find. Not only is the earth deep
red in the meadows, where the farmers have torn open its green coat, and
many of the roads a pale rose-pink--dust and all--but lots of houses and
cottages are pink, a real Italian pink, so that whole villages blush as
you look them in the face. Sometimes, too, there's a blue or a green, or
a golden-ochre house; here and there a high, broken wall of rose or
faded yellow, with torrential geraniums boiling over the top. And the
effect of this riot of colour, in contrast with the silver gray of the
velvety thatch, or lichen-jewelled slate roofs, under great, cool trees,
is even more beautiful than Italy. If all England is a park, Devonshire
is a queen's garden.

From Sidmouth we went to Budleigh Salterton (why either, but especially
both?), quaintly pretty, and rather Holland-like with its miniature
bridges and canal. Then to Exmouth, with its flowering "front," its tiny
"Maison Carree" (which would remind one more of Nimes if it had no bay
windows), and its exquisite view across silver river, and purple hills
that ripple away into faint lilac shadows in the distance. Then we
struck inland, to Exeter, and at Exeter we stopped two days, in the very
oldest and queerest but nicest hotel imaginable.

I wasn't so very happy there, because the Thing I'm going to tell you
about in good time hadn't happened yet. But I'm not sure that I wasn't
more in tune with Exeter than if I had been as happy as I am now. The
scenery here suits my joyous mood; and the grave tranquillity of the
beautiful old cathedral town calmed my spirit when I needed calm.

I've given up expecting to love any other cathedral as I loved
Winchester. Chichester I've half forgotten already--except some of the
tombs. Salisbury was far more beautiful, far more impressive in its
proportions than Winchester, yet to me not so impressive in other w