THE SEARCH AND FINDING, 89 



described as lying on the edge of the wood ; and it 

 seemed to me, that if it should be mine, it should 

 wear the name of Edgewood. 



It is the name it bears now. I will not detail 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 became 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 eastern slope where the 

 orchard lay, which took the first burst of the morn- 

 ing, and the first warmth of Spring ; there was an- 

 other 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 au- 

 tumn, 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 



