On this bend the bank is high and bold, so from, the house or the lawn the view was very rich and commanding.

But if you descended a ravine at the side to the water's edge, you found there a long walk on the narrow shore, with a wall above of the richest hanging wood, in which they said the deer lay hid.

I never saw one but often fancied that I heard them rustling, at daybreak, by these bright, clear waters, stretching out in such smiling promise where no sound broke the deep and blissful seclusion, unless now and then this rustling, or the splash of some fish a little gayer than the others; it seemed not necessary to have any better heaven, or fuller expression of love and freedom, than in the mood of Nature here.
Then, leaving the bank, you would walk far and yet farther through long, grassy paths, full of the most brilliant, also the most delicate flowers.

The brilliant are more common on the prairie, but both kinds loved this place.
Amid the grass of the lawn, with a profusion of wild strawberries, we greeted also a familiar love, the Scottish harebell, the gentlest and most touching form of the flower-world.
The master of the house was absent, but with a kindness beyond thanks had offered us a resting-place there.

Here we were taken care of by a deputy, who would, for his youth, have been assigned the place of a page in former times, but in the young West, it seems, he was old enough for a steward.