sion, repeated day after day. A few summer
weeks among mountains, a lifetime among
green meadows and placid slopes, with outlines
forever new, because continually fading out of
the memory such would be my sober choice.

I doubt whether Eustace did not internally
pronounce the whole thing a bore, until I led
him to my predecessor's little ruined, rustic
summer house, midway on the hillside. It is
a mere skeleton of slender, decaying tree
trunks, with neither walls nor a roof; nothing
but a tracery of branches and twigs, which the
next wintry blast will be very likely to scatter
in fragments along the terrace. It looks, and
is, as evanescent as a dream; and yet, in its
rustic network of boughs, it has somehow en-
closed a hint of spiritual beauty, and has be-
come a true emblem of the subtile and ethereal
mind that planned it. I made Eustace Bright
sit down on a snow bank, which had heaped
itself over the mossy seat, and gazing through
the arched window opposite, he acknowledged
that the scene at once grew picturesque.

"Simple as it looks," said he, "this little
edifice seems to be the work of magic. It ia

[[9]]

p008 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p009w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p010

v?