"
Hour after hour would Edith sit with him upon the grass plat
overlooking the deep ravine, and make him see with her eyes the
gloriously magnificent view, than which there is surely none finer
in all the world; then, when the looked toward the west, and the
mountain shadow began to creep across the valley, the river, and
the hills beyond, shrouding them in an early twilight, she would
lead him away to some quiet sheltered spot, where unobserved, she
could lavish upon him the little acts of love she knew he so much
craved and which she would not give to him when curious eyes were
looking on. It was a blissful paradise to Richard, and when in
after years he looked back upon the past, he always recurred to
those few weeks as the brightest spot in his whole life, blessing
Edith for the happiness she gave him during that season of
delicious quiet spent amid the wild scenery of the Catskill
Mountains.
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE LAND OF FLOWERS.
It was the original plan for the party to remain two weeks or more
at the Mountain House, and then go on to Saratoga, but so
delighted were they with the place that they decided to tarry
longer, and the last of August found them still inmates of the
hotel, whose huge white walls, seen from the Hudson, stand out
from the dark wooded landscape, like some mammoth snow bank,
suggestive to the traveller of a quiet retreat and a cool shelter
from the summer's fervid heat.
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