Green squares with trees in them checkered the blocks of buildings; along its skirts, where a haze of smoke hung about the wharves, the great river gleamed in a broad silver band.

On the farther bank the plain ran on again, fading from green to gray and purple, until it melted into the distance, and the hills on the Vermont frontier cut, faintly blue, against the sky.
"How beautiful this world is!" Challoner exclaimed.

"I have seen grander sights, and there are more picturesque cities than Montreal--I'm looking forward to showing you the work of the Moguls in India--but happiness such as I've had of late casts a glamour over everything.

It wasn't always so with me; I've had my bad hours when I was blind to beauty." Though Blanche Challoner was very young, and much in love, she ventured a smiling rebuke.
"You shouldn't wish to remember them; I'm afraid, Bertram, there's a melancholy strain in you, and I don't mean to let you indulge in it.
Besides, how could you have had bad hours?
You have been made much of, and given everything you could wish for, since you were a boy.

Indeed, I sometimes wonder how you escaped from being spoiled." "When I joined the army, I hated it; that sounds like high treason, doesn't it?
However, I got used to things, and made art my hobby instead of my vocation.