48 THROUGH LIBRARY WINDOWS 



bathers in skimmer and skaters in winter enjoy 

 it, what wheels it turns, what picturesque beauty 

 it adds to the scenery. It is never selfish, but 

 generous and prized in a hundred ways by the 

 dwellers along its shores. We have often 

 walked from its source to the mills and seen its 

 widening and deepening, its meadows and pas- 

 tures and orchards and towns and villages and 

 peoples — have seen it all, and yet not all. The 

 deepest appeal of the whole valley scenery is 

 ever to the imagination, for it is nowhere wild 

 except at its fountain-head, and never tumult- 

 uous except at the mills where it runs its rocky 

 sluiceway. 



The Lepeyre has no commerce and cares for 

 none, the steel track takes that and is welcome 

 to its noise and smoke and tug and toil. All 

 along its sinuous march there is prosperity. 



Nature brings out her best and apparels her- 

 self gorgeously. Nothing specially holds the 

 attention for the loveliness is diffused. Beauty 

 lies like a magical veil over the whole land- 

 scape, concealing nothing yet touching every- ' 

 thing with a subdued richness that one loves to 

 look at long and oft — a richness that seems a 

 trick or a gift of imagination. 



Along its whole course, riding or walking, 

 one sees splendid fields of grain or corn in long, 



