As you will infer from this, Romeo is not only of a gentle, meditative disposition, but his harness is destitute of a check rein, overdraw, or otherwise.

“Have you put in the trowels?” I asked, as we drove out the gate, the reins hanging so loosely from between Bart’s knees, as he lit his pipe, that it was by mere chance that Romeo took the right turn.

“No, I never thought of them; this is merely a prospecting trip.  Did you put in the lunch?”

I was obliged to confess that I had not, but later on a box of sandwiches was found under the seat in company with Romeo’s nose-bag of oats, this indication being that, as Barney alone knew directly of our destination, he must have informed Anastasia, who took pity, regarding us, as she does, as a cross between lunatics and the babes in the woods.

We chose byways, and only crossed the macadamized highroad, that haunt of automobiles, once, and after an hour’s sauntering crossed the river and drove into the woodlots to the north of it, now the property of the water company, who have already posted warning to trespassers.  We straightway began to trespass, seeing The Man from Everywhere on horseback coming down to meet us.

Without an apparent change of soil or altitude, the scenery at once grew more bold and dramatic.

“What is it?” I said.  “We have been driving through lanes lined by dogwood and yet that little tree below and the scrubby bit of hillside make a more perfect picture than any we have seen!”

[Illustration:  THE PICTORIAL VALUE OF EVERGREENS.]

Bart, who had left the buggy and was walking beside it with The Man, who had dismounted and led his nag, turned and looked backward, but did not answer.

“It is the evergreens that give it the quality,” said The Man, “even though they are only those stiff little Noah’s-ark cedars.  I notice it far and wide, wherever I go; a landscape is never monotonous so long as there is a pine, spruce, hemlock, or bit of a cedar to bind it together.  I believe that is why I am never content for long in the land of palms!”

“I love evergreens in winter, but I’ve never thought much about them in the growing leafy season; they seem unimportant then,” I said.

“Unimportant or not, they are still there.  Look at that wall of trees rising across the river!  Every conceivable tint of green is there, besides shades of pink and lavender in leaf case and catkin, but what dominates and translates the whole?  The great hemlocks on the crest and the dark pointed cedars off on the horizon where the woodland thins toward the pastures.  Whether you separate them or not, they are there.  People are only just beginning to understand the value of evergreens in their home gardens, both as windbreaks and backgrounds.  No, I don’t mean stark, isolated specimens, stiff as Christmas trees.  You have a magnificent chance to use them on that knoll of yours that you are going to restore!”