Once with his waking eyes he saw a mist afar off, between the hills that ramparted the horizon, grow rosy after the sun was down, and his heart filled as with the joy of a new discovery.

Around him, it is true, the waters rushed well from their hills, but their banks had little beauty.

Not merely did the want of trees distress him, but the nature of their channel; most of them, instead of rushing through rocks, cut their way only through beds of rough gravel, and their bare surroundings were desolate without grandeur--almost mean to eyes that had not yet pierced to the soul of them.

Nor had he yet learned to admire the lucent brown of the bog waters.

There seemed to be in the boy a strain of some race used to a richer home; and yet all the time the frozen regions of the north drew his fancy tenfold more than Italy or Egypt.
His name was Cosmo, a name brought from Italy by one of the line who had sold his sword and fought for strangers.