willows.  Old trees renewed their youth in the slight tenacious grasp of many a tremulous tendril, and, leaping lightly above their topmost heights, vine laughed to vine, swaying dreamily in the summer air; and not a vine nor brook nor hill nor forest but sent up a sweet-smelling incense to its Maker.  Not an ox or cow or lamb or bird living its own dim life but lent its charm of unconscious grace to the great picture that unfolded itself, mile after mile, in ever fresher loveliness to ever unsated eyes.  Well might the morning stars sing together, and all the sons of God shout for joy, when first this grand and perfect world swung free from its moorings, flung out its spotless banner, and sailed majestic down the thronging skies.  Yet, though but once God spoke the world to life, the miracle of creation is still incomplete.  New every springtime, fresh every summer, the earth comes forth as a bride adorned for her husband.  Not only in the gray dawn of our history, but now in the full brightness of its noon-day, may we hear the voice of the Lord walking in the garden.  I look out upon the gray degraded fields left naked of the kindly snow, and inwardly ask:  Can these dry bones live again?  And while the question is yet trembling on my lips, lo! a Spirit breathes upon the earth, and beauty thrills into bloom.  Who shall lack faith in man’s redemption, when every year the earth is redeemed by unseen hands, and death is lost in resurrection?

To Fontdale sitting among her beautiful meadows we are borne swiftly on.  There we must tarry for the night, for I will not travel in the dark when I can help it.  I love it.  There is no solitude in the world, or at least I have never felt any, like standing alone in the door-way of the rear car on a dark night, and rushing on through the darkness,—­darkness, darkness everywhere, and if one could only be sure of rushing on till daylight doth appear!  But with the frightful and not remote possibility of bringing up in a crash and being buried under a general huddle, one prefers daylight.  You may not be able to get out of the huddle even by daylight; but you will at least know where you are, if there is anything of you left.  So at Fontdale Halicarnassus branches off temporarily on a business errand, and I stop for the night a-cousining.

You object to this?  Some people do.  For my part, I like it.  You say you don’t want to turn your own house or your friend’s house into a hotel.  If people want to see you, let them come and make a visit; if you want to see them, you will go and make them one; but this touch and go,—­what is it worth?  O foolish Galatians! much every way.  For don’t you see, supposing the people are people you don’t like, how much better it is to have them come and sleep or dine and be gone than to have them before your face and eyes for a week?  An ill that is temporary is tolerable.  You could entertain the Evil One himself, if you were sure he would go away after dinner.  The trouble about