"
* * * * *
HOW IT WAS FOUND.
Summer ripened into autumn, and something fairer than
"Sweet-peas and mignonette
In Annie's garden grew."
Her nature was the counterpart of the hill-side grove, where as a
child she had read her fairy tales, and now as a woman turned the
first pages of a more wondrous legend still. Lifted above the
many-gabled roof, yet not cut off from the echo of human speech, the
little grove seemed a green sanctuary, fringed about with violets, and
full of summer melody and bloom. Gentle creatures haunted it, and
there was none to make afraid; wood-pigeons cooed and crickets chirped
their shrill roundelays, anemones and lady-ferns looked up from the
moss that kissed the wanderer's feet. Warm airs were all afloat, full
of vernal odors for the grateful sense, silvery birches shimmered like
spirits of the wood, larches gave their green tassels to the wind, and
pines made airy music sweet and solemn, as they stood looking
heavenward through veils of summer sunshine or shrouds of wintry snow.
Nan never felt alone now in this charmed wood; for when she came into
its precincts, once so full of solitude, all things seemed to wear one
shape, familiar eyes looked at her from the violets in the grass,
familiar words sounded in the whisper of the leaves, and she grew
conscious that an unseen influence filled the air with new delights,
and touched earth and sky with a beauty never seen before.
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