When the pedestrians passed, the door was
decorously closed, and no one visible but a young
man, who snatched something out of the road,
and marched away again, whistling with more
vigor of tone than accuracy of tune, "Only that,
and nothing more."
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.
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