MY FARM OF EDGEWOOD 



tail the means by which the coyness of my 

 iron-gray-haired friend was won over to a 

 sale; it is enough to tell that within six weeks 

 from the day on which I had first sighted the 

 view, and brushed through the lilac hedge at 

 the door, the place, from having been the 

 home of another, had become a home of mine, 

 and a new stock of Lares was blooming in the 

 Atrium. 



In the disposition of the landscape, and in 

 the breadth of the land, there was all, and 

 more than I had desired. There was an east- 

 ern slope where the orchard lay, which took 

 the first burst of the morning, and the first 

 warmth of Spring; there was another valley 

 slope southward from the door, which took 

 the warmth of the morning, and which keeps 

 the sun till night. There was a wood, in 

 which now the little ones gather anemones in 

 spring, and in autumn, heaping baskets of 

 nuts. There was a strip of sea in sight, on 

 which I can trace the white sails, as they come 

 and go, without leaving my library chair ; and 

 each night I see the flame of a lighthouse kin- 

 dled, and its reflection dimpled on the water. 

 If the brook is out of sight, beyond the hills, it 

 has its representative in the fountain that is 

 gurgling and plashing at my door. 



44 



