you descend this hill, and, crossing a bridge on the left, pass through the flower-bright fields, and so to the valleys through which a brook runs, leaping, sparkling, widening, narrowing, with a dainty border of forget-me-nots, and reeds that stand up stiff and straight, like sentinels guarding the pretty flowers. On either side banks and woods rise steeply to a great height. In spring time, the girls say, they are speckled all over with spring flowers, of which there are many curious and unknown species, never met with in flatter, duller regions. And oh, it must be a rare and delicate sight to see these picturesque slopes putting on their thousand tints of green and yellow, and one for which my eyes look eagerly. These valleys are strangely cool and deep and silent; not a sound breaks the stillness save the fretting of the water against the stones, or the infrequent song of the birds—clearer, sweeter here, I always think, than anywhere else. To me these valleys always seem to have remained just as they left God's hand at the creation of the world, they are so fresh, so pure, so untrodden with their vernal shades and dim, cool alleys. A deep peace broods ever over them, and the weary, struggling, sinful world seems very far away. Walking in them one feels the faint echo of some such exquisite delight as Adam and Eve knew when they walked together in the garden of Paradise for the first time, when it was all new, fresh from God's hand, and their souls were innocent and pure enough to taste its exceeding delicacy. I think none but the very young, or the very old can enjoy nature thoroughly; with the latter the heart and mind are dulled, and ordinary events and interests have little power over them, and they go back to that simplicity of mind that makes the treasures of the earth suffice without the excitement of the passions of the heart; while the very young look on it with unjaded eyes, and no restless longing after things they do not know and have never dreamed of. The nightingale has made his home down here. He sings at night to
