r
by inhaling its perfume after rain, don't you think, than by dissecting
it, petal by petal? I fancy there is something like that in getting the
feeling and impression of places at their best, by sudden revelations.
Of course, I want to go back to Clovelly, but not with any of the Mrs.
Nortons of the world. I couldn't bear to do that, after being alone
there with Sir Lionel. While one's heart is thrilled by exquisite
sights, and the ineffable thoughts born of them, one knows poor Emily is
wondering whether the servants are looking after things properly at
home; and that very knowledge is apt to slam down an iron shutter in
one's soul.

It must have been about five o'clock when we took our places in the car
again. We had only eleven miles' run to Bideford, and I wished them
twice eleven, for surely they are among the most beautiful miles in
England. No wonder people believe in fairies in this part of the world!
It would be ungrateful if they didn't. As the sun climbed, the brown
wood roads were inlaid with gold in wavy patterns. From our heights, now
and again we caught glimpses of Clovelly, down its deep ravines. The
Hobby Drive, which belongs to Clovelly Court, is almost more exquisite
than Buckland Chase, on the way to Dartmoor; if you had been there with
me, you would know I couldn't give it higher praise. And how I wish you
_had_ been! How I wish you could see these English woods! They have such
an air of dainty gaiety, very different from Austrian or German or
French forests; and though their elms and oaks and beeches are often
giants, they seem dedicated to the spirit of youth. Their shadows are
never black, but only a darker green, or translucent gray; and part of
their charm is a nymph-like frivolousness which comes, I think, from
their ruffly green _dessous_. Other woods have no _dessous_. Their
ankles are mournfully bare, and their stockings dark.

In the woods of the Hobby Drive, the bracken was like elfin plumes; each
stone, wrapped in moss, was a lump of silver coated with verdigris;
distant cliffs seen between the trees were cut out of gray-green jade,
against a sea of changing opal; and in the high minstrel-galleries of
the latticed beeches a concert of birds was fluting.

Isn't Gallantry Bower a fine name? At first thought it would appear an
inappropriate one, for it's a sheer cliff overlooking the sea on one
side and a vast sweep of woodland on the other; but I can make it seem
appropriate, by pictu