"I was twenty-one last winter. Do I look
very young?" he inquired, with the natural anxiety of a man who has
recently escaped the ignominy of being in his teens.
"You look altogether too young," dryly returned the ancient servitor,
"to appreciate the worth of a country where old customs, old ideas,
and old traditions are respected."
"Then may youth always be mine!" exclaimed Edward, looking round him
with the glow in his heart, sure to be felt by the devout worshipper
of Nature in the large and beautiful presence of her whom he adores.
The region about him, esteemed the epitome of dreariness in winter,
held now in its depths a vast luxury of vegetation. The wild vines ran
knotted and twisted about the trunks and branches of multitudinous
trees, and the fallen logs were draped with moss, lichens, and
delicate ferns. Passing through this boundless wilderness, they seemed
to look into a succession of woodland chambers, thickly carpeted with
wild flowers, gorgeously festooned with creeping and parasitical
plants hanging from the branches, and secured in their leafy seclusion
by walls of abundant foliage.
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