Valley there was hardly any; the up-springing walls of green started from the very border of the broad white stream which made its way between them.

They were nowhere less than two hundred feet high; above that, moulded in all manner of heights and hollows; sometimes reaching up abruptly to twelve or fourteen hundred feet, and sometimes stretching away in long gorges and gentle declivities, -- hills grouping behind hills.

In Summer all these were a mass of living green, that the eye could hardly arrange; under Spring's delicate marshalling every little hill took its own place, and the soft swells of ground stood back the one from the other, in more and more tender colouring.

The eye leapt from ridge to ridge of beauty; not green now, but in the very point of the bursting leaf, taking what hue it pleased the sun.

It was a dainty day; and it grew more dainty as the day drew towards its close and the lights and shadows stretched athwart the landscape again.