He began his quest.  He gave concerts in all the larger places; he looked anxiously through the large audiences that attended them,—­hopelessly,—­for how could he expect to find Laura among them?  Often he left the railroads, to walk through the villages.  It was the summer time, and he enjoyed the zest of climbing hills and wandering through quiet valleys.

He met with pleasant greetings in farm-houses, so far from the world that a stranger was greeted as a friend, where hospitality had not been so long worn upon but that it could offer a fresh cordiality to an unknown face.  He wished he were a painter, that he might paint the pretty domestic scenes he saw:  the cattle coming home at evening,—­the children crowding round the school-mistress, as they walked away with her from the school-door,—­the groups of girls sitting at sunset on the door-steps under the elms,—­the broad meadows,—­the rushing mountain-streams.  But again, after the fresh delight of one of these country-walks, he would reproach himself that he had left the more beaten ways and the crowded cars, where he might have met Laura.

In passing in one of these from one of the larger towns to another, he met Caroline, on her bridal tour as Mrs. Gresham.

“You are not gone to Kansas yet?” she asked.  “Then you will be able to come and visit us in Newport this summer.  I assure you, you will find cottage-life there far more romantic than log-cabin life.”

Of course he found success at last.  It was just as summer was beginning to wane, but when in September she was putting on some of her last glories and her most fervid heats.  He had reached the summit of a hill, then slowly walked down its slope, as he admired the landscape that revealed itself to him.  He saw, far away among the hills in the horizon, the town towards which he was bound.  The sunset was gathering brilliant colors over the sky; hills and meadows were bathed in a soft light.  He stopped in front of a house that was separated from the road by a soft green of clover.  By the gate there was a seat, on which he sat down to rest.  It was all that was left of a great elm that some Vandal of the last generation had cut away.  Nature had meanwhile been doing her best to make amends for the great damage.  Soft mosses nestled over the broad, mutilated stump, the rains of years had washed out the freshness of its scar, vines wound themselves around, dandelions stretched their broad yellow shields above, and falling leaves rested there to form a carpet over it.

As Arnold, tired with his day’s walk, was resting himself in the repose of the hour, the old master of the house came to talk with him.  They spoke of the distance to the town, of the hilly road that led to it, of the meadows in the valley, and their rich crops.  At last the old man asked Arnold into his house, and offered him the old-fashioned hospitality of a mug of cider, apologizing as he did so, telling how the times had changed, and what had become of all the cider-mills in the neighborhood.  He showed the large stem of the sweetbrier under which they passed as they went into the house, such as Arnold had seen hanging over many a New-England porch, large enough for many initials to be carved upon it.  They sat down in the little front-room, and talked on as the mother brought the promised mug of eider.