"Is it? Oh, this pine wood is better than dinner! Look how the light is coming red through the boles of the trees! Feel this air that is playing about my face! Smell the pines!"

"But you will want dinner, Uncle Eden, all the same, and it will be ready."

"Well," said Mr. Murray, rousing himself so far as to get up on one elbow.

"Where shall we go for our reading to-morrow afternoon?" said Maggie.

"The Lookout rock," suggested Meredith.

"Do you like that, Uncle Eden?"

"I like it all, Maggie. If to-morrow is like to-day, I think the Lookout rock will be very enjoyable."

"And then you can look at the sky while you are talking to us," said Maggie comfortably.

"Why precisely at the sky?" Meredith asked laughing.

"Oh, it's so beautiful up there sometimes."

They sauntered slowly back to the house, through the sweet pines, under the illuminating red rays which were coming level against the tree-stems. Then out of the wood and among the flower-beds and shrubbery surrounding the house; with the open view of sky and river, purple-brown and ruddy gold lights flowing upon the sides of the hills, reflecting the western brilliance, which yet was warm and rich rather than dazzling.

"I never saw such a place as this!" exclaimed Meredith for the fourth or fifth time.

"The world is a wonderful place generally," observed Mr. Murray thoughtfully. "Rich--rich! 'the riches of His grace,' and the riches of His wisdom."

They were a very happy party at dinner. Fenton, it is true, came out singularly in the conversation, and gave a number of details respecting life at school and his views of life in the world. Mr. Murray's answers however were so humorous, and so wise and sweet at the same time, that it seemed Fenton only furnished a text for the most pleasant discourse.

And after dinner Maggie got out stereoscopic views, and she and others delighted themselves with a new look at the Middle Ages.

"What a strange thing it must be," said Meredith, "to live where every farm and every church has a history; of course every village."

"Haven't farms and villages in our country a history?" Maggie inquired.

"No," said Esther; "of course not."

"A few," said Mr. Murray. "Such New England farms, for instance, as still bear the names 'Lonesome' and 'Scrabblehard.' But the histories are not very old, and refer to nothing more picturesque than the struggles of the early settlers."

"What struggles?" Maggie wanted to know.

"Struggles for life. With the hard soil, with the hard climate, and with the wild Indians. But such struggles, Maggie, left an inheritance of strength, patience, and daring to their children."

"Why haven't we stories like those of the Saxons?"

"Why!" exclaimed Fenton impatiently, "are you such a simple? There was nothing here but red Indians till a little while ago."

"We have not been a nation for more than a hundred years, Maggie," said Meredith.

"And before that, were the Indians here at Mosswood?"

"No, no," said Fenton. "You had better study history."

"As _you_ have," put in his uncle. "Won't you tell Maggie when the first settlements of the English were made in America?"

However, Fenton could not.

"In the beginning of the seventeenth century it was, Maggie, that the first colonies were established here. The Dutch came to New York, and the Puritans to New England, and a little earlier the English colonists to Virginia. We are a young country."

"Is it better to be a young country, or to be an old one?"

"The young country has its life before it," said Mr. Murray smiling;--"like a young girl."

"How, Uncle Eden?"

"She has the chance still to make it n.o.ble and beautiful."

"We can't have these grand old castles, though," said Meredith, looking at the view of Sonneck.

"Those are the picturesque scars remaining of a time which was not beautiful--except to the eye. I suppose it was that."

The conversation took a turn too historical to be reported here.

The next day was a worthy successor of the preceding. All the party went to church in the morning; on account of the distance, n.o.body went in the afternoon. Mr. Candlish would not have his horses and servants called out in the latter half of the day. The dinner was early; and so then after dinner the party set out upon a slow progress to the Lookout rock, carrying Bibles, and Meredith with his little German volume in his pocket.

Another such afternoon as the yesterday's had been! Warm, still, fragrant, hazy; more hazy than ever. The outlines of the distant hills were partially veiled; the colours on the middle distance glowing, mellow and soft, all the sun's glitter being shielded off. Slowly and enjoyingly the little company wandered along, leaving the lawns and pleasure ground of flowers behind them; through the cedars, past the spot where a day or two ago they had sat and read and eaten their chicken pie. Past that, and then up a winding steep mountain road that led up to the height of the point above. Just before the top was reached they turned off from the way towards the left, whence glimpses of the river had been coming to them, and after a few steps over stones and under the trees which covered all the higher ground, emerged from both upon a broad, smooth, top of a great outlying ma.s.s of granite rock which overhung the river. Not literally; a stone dropped from the edge would have rolled, not fallen, into the water; a stone thrown from the hand easily might have done the latter. The precipice was too sheer to let any but those sitting on the very edge of the rock look down its rugged, tree-bedecked side. However, Mr. Murray and Meredith at once placed themselves on that precise edge of the platform, while the girls and Fenton sat down in what they considered a safer position. A hundred feet below, just below, rolled the broad river; Mosswood's projecting point to the right still shutting off all view of the upper stream, while the jutting forth of Gee's point below on the other side equally cut off the southern reach of the river. The trees at hand, right and left, above and below, standing in autumn's gay colours; the hillsides and curves of the opposite sh.o.r.e showing the same hues more mild under the veil of haze and the distance. Not a leaf fluttered on its stem in the deep stillness; but far down below one could hear the soft lapping of the water as it flowed past the rocks. The stillness and the light filled up the measure of each other's beauty.

For a while everybody was silent. There was a spell of nature, which even the young people did not care to break. Flora drew a long breath, at last, and then Maggie spoke.

"Uncle Eden, we came here to talk."

"Did we?"

"I thought we did--to talk and to read."

"Nature is doing some talking, and we are listening."

"What does Nature say?"

"Do you hear nothing?"

Maggie thought she _did_, and yet she could not have told what. "It is not very plain, Uncle Eden," she remarked.

"It becomes plainer and plainer the older you grow, Maggie,--that is, supposing you keep your ears open."

"But I would like to know what your ears hear, Uncle Eden."

"It will be more profitable to go into the subjects you wanted to discuss. What are they?"

"I made a list of them, Uncle Eden," said Maggie, foisting a crumpled bit of paper out of her pocket. "Uncle Eden, Ditto read to us some stories which you didn't hear,--it was just before you came,--about poor people who gave the only pennies they had to pay for sending missionaries, and went without their Sunday lunch to have a penny to give; and Flora said she thought it was wrong; and we couldn't decide how much it was right to do."

"It is a delicate question."