Blue sea, blue sky, blue
mountains, blue smoke that rose in misty spirals as from a thousand
fairy fires and, nearer, the sun-warmed, dew-drenched green--green
of the earth, green of the trees, green of the graceful, sweeping
curves of wooded point and bay. Far away, on peaks half hidden, snow
still lay--a whiteness so ethereal that the gazer caught his breath.
And with it all there was the scent of something--something so
fresh, so penetrating, so infinitely sweet--what could it be?
"Ambrosia!" said Benis Spence, unconscious that he spoke aloud.
"Balm of Gilead," said a practical voice beside him. "It smells like
that in the bud, you know."
"Does it?" The professor's tone was dreamy. "Honey and wine--that's
what it's like--honey and wine in the wilderness! You didn't tell me
it would be like this," he added, turning abruptly to his companion
of the night before.
"How could I tell what it would be like--to you?" asked the girl.
"It's different for everyone. I've known people stand here and think
of nothing but their breakfast."
At the word "breakfast" (which had temporarily slipped from his
vocabulary) the famished professor wheeled so quickly that his knee
twisted. Miss Farr smiled, her cool and too-understanding smile.
"There's something to eat," she said. "Come in."
She did not wait for him but walked off quickly. The professor
followed more slowly. The path, even the front path, was rough (he
had noticed that last night); but the cottage, seen now with the
glamour of its outlook still in his eyes, seemed not quite so
impossible as he had thought.
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