Alluring, lovable, mysterious--as the heart of a woman.

Many a time I followed the Road where it led through innocent meadows or climbed leisurely hill slopes only to find that it had crept around slyly and led me before I knew it into the back door of some busy town.
Mostly in this country the towns squat low in the valleys, they lie in wait by the rivers, and often I scarcely know of their presence until I am so close upon them that I can smell the breath of their heated nostrils and hear their low growlings and grumblings.
My fear of these lesser towns has never been profound.

I have even been bold enough, when I came across one of them, to hasten straight through as though assured that Cerberus was securely chained; but I found, after a time, what I might indeed have guessed, that the Road, also led irresistibly to the lair of the Old Monster himself, the He-one of the species, where he lies upon the plain, lolling under his soiled gray blanket of smoke.
It is wonderful to be safe at home again, to watch the tender, reddish brown shoots of the Virginia creeper reaching in at my study window, to see the green of my own quiet fields, to hear the peaceful clucking of the hens in the sunny dooryard--and Harriet humming at her work in the kitchen.
When I left the Ransomes that fine spring morning, I had not the slightest presentiment of what the world held in store for me.

After being a prisoner of the weather for so long, I took to the Road with fresh joy.

All the fields were of a misty greenness and there were pools still shining in the road, but the air was deliciously clear, clean, and soft.