Four or five clear brooks flowed down the slopes, and the sheen of a little river showed in the distance.

Three small villages were in sight, and, clean white smoke rising from their chimneys, blended harmoniously into the blue of the skies.

It reminded John of pictures by the great French landscape painters.

It was all so beautiful and peaceful, nor was the impression marred by the distant mutter of the guns which he had forgotten again.
Julie and Suzanne, her menacing shadow, dismounted from the wagon presently and walked with John and Picard.

Lieutenant Legare was stirred enough from his customary phlegm to offer some gallant words, but war, the great leveler, had not quite leveled all barriers, so far as he was concerned, and, after her polite reply, he returned to his martial duties.