In a wooded nook on my right stands the little brown mill, with its huge wheel, and wide blue pond, and foamy waterfall.  On that day I heard its drone, and saw the geese bathing, and throwing up the bright sparkling drops with their wings, until they fell like fountains.

On my left lay “a little lane serene,” with stone fences half hid by blackberry-bushes—­

      ——­“A little lane serene,
  Smooth-heaped from wall to wall with unbroken snows. 
  Or in the summer blithe with lamb-cropped green,
  Save the one track, where naught more rude is seen
    Than the plump wain at even
  Bringing home four months’ sunshine bound in sheaves.”

I thought of those lines there and then, and they enhanced even the joy of Nature.  They tinged her for me with the magic colors of poetry.

When I had thus scrutinized earth, I looked up to heaven.  It had been so long shut from me by the network of the grove, that it was like escaping from confining toils, to look straight into Heaven’s face, with nothing between, not even a cloud.

I have never seen a sweeter, calmer picture than that I gazed upon all the morning, and for which the two huge old cedars formed a rugged, but harmonious frame.

I have lived out of doors since.  When it is cold, I am wrapped in a wadded robe Kate has made for me,—­a capital thing, loose, and warm, and silky-soft.  To an invalid with nerves all on edge, that is much.  I never found out, until Kate enveloped me in its luxurious folds, what it was that rasped my feelings so, every morning, when I was dressed; I then knew it must have been my flashy woollen dressing-gown.  I envy women their soft raiment, and I rather dread the day when I shall be compelled to wear coats again. (Let me cheat myself, if I can.)

III.

May, 1855.

You wish to know more of Ben.  I am glad of it.  You shall be immediately gratified.

He is a true Scot, tall and strong and sandy-haired, with quick gray eyes, and a grave countenance, which relaxes only upon very great provocation.

Before I came here, he was known simply as a most careful, industrious, silent, saving machine, which cared not a jot for anybody in particular, but never wanted any spur to its own mechanical duty.  It was never known to do a turn of work not legitimately its own, though mathematically exact in its proper office.  But after I came here with my sister, a helpless cripple, we found out that the mathematical machine was a man, with a soft, beating heart.  He was called upon to lift me from the carriage, and he did it as tenderly as a woman.  He took me up as a mother lifts her child from the cradle, and I reposed passively in his strong arms, with a feeling of perfect security and ease.

From that day to this, Ben has been a most devoted friend to me.  He watches for opportunities to do me kindnesses, and takes from his own sacred time to make me comforts.  He has had me in his arms a hundred times, and carries me from bed to couch like a baby.  I positively blush in writing this to you.  You have known me to be a man for years, and here I am in arms again!