The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1908-09-16

~parently to restore the invalid.
His appetite was more constant
his spirits rose, his temper was less
variable, and the power to enjoy, Of
which he had been deprived to a
great extent, began to return to him
by fits and starts, it is true, but
still it came, and his wife was happy
about him again in a calm and stead
fast way which was natural to her.
One morning after their early
breakfast they stroIled out of their
garden on to the beach with their
boy. Leslie Somers had a book, his
wife a piece of work, and they sat on
the single, giving az much attention
to each other and to the sturdy child
as they did to book or work.
The boy would paddle at first, and
his mother took off his shoes and
socks, but finding the water warm
and pleasant the young rascal was not
content to have no more of 1t than
would cover his feet, and so, when his
parents attention was otherwise en-
gagged, he quietly Invested himself of
his scanty summer clothing, and
when they looked again, behold him
standing, a very Cupid with golden
curls, Growing with delight and say
ing, Mind! mind" to the little
waves that splashed up against his
notified legs, while he motioned them
back with %outspread, dimpled hands.
His father took a rope that was
trailing from a fishing boat drawn up
on the beach close by and playfully
threw it round him, making believe
that he was a ship, and must make
fast to the ~capstan, his mother-the
boy entering into the joke and max
ing the beach resound with peals Of
laughter, spontaneous, ripping and
delicious as the lap and murmur of
the little waves that burst about his
feet.
This game ended, and the child
dressed again, the three wandered
off into the village to buy fruit, and
having obtained what they wanted,
they continued their walk, passing
through a narrow gorge between the
hills at the back Of the village on the
heath.
These hills curved around the
houses like a protecting arm, shelter
ing them in a warm embrace from
the world beyond and keeping them
safe from all storms but such as were
caused by the restless, variable tenn
per of the wind on the bosom of its
slave, the sea,
From the village street il would
have been impossible to suspect the
existence of a great wide heath on the
other side of the hills, or even to
catch a glimpse of any road by which
this sheltered nook could keep up
communication with the other world;
and when, having passed through
that narrow gorge, you found your
self on the heath, it was so unlike
every other feature of the place, eX-
cept, perhaps, the sea, which was not
visible from any part of it, and to
which, in the long swell and sweep
of it, and its billowy undulations, it
bore some resemblance, that you
might easily have imagined yourself
conveyed by a powerful spell from an
Eden of flowers and sunshine to the
cold of a wind-swept desert, dreary,
d~isconsolate, abandoned-the begin
ming of that world without end and
where all life ceases, and the con-
seriousness of what must follow does
not yet begin.
But this would only be your first
| impression as you stood a little above
the heath, looking down on what
would then seem to you a wide, I'M
lovely, level, monotonous expanse.
Like people who are really worth
knowing, the heath improved on &C
quaintance; and the more intimate
you were with it, and the nearer you
came to it, the better you liked it.
First you perceived with awe the
vast, unusual height of the vault Of
heaven above it; and next you were
conscious of the indefnable charm Of
level distance, apparently unbounded;
and then there came to you that sense
of freedom, born of pure air and open
space, which gives wings to the spirit
and exhilarates unspeakably. And
once you were down upon the heath,
you found it no longer a dreary,
monotonous expanse. Even the same
ness of color vanished then; the
heather mixture of purple and white,
brown, yellow and green, so insig-
nificant in the distance, but so beau
tiful when you found yourself sur
rounded by its component parts-the
purple heather, the creamy meadow
sweet, the tall foxglove and the
feathery green of ferns and bracken
through which you might then be
wading breast high.
All these were specks in a con-
glomerate whole, when seen from
above, with no more character visi-
BILE than is shown by a crowd of ones
fellow-creatures in parti-colored
clothes. But once among them, and
you found that, like those same fell
low~-creatures, each had e separate
existence, large, and more or less
lonely, of its own, a local h%abitation
and a name.
And when you would find, too, that
seemingly dry, barren level was in
reality nothing Of the kind but a
rugged surface, varied with heights
and hollows, and full Of life and
CHEEKY voices, the babble of number
less streams, the merry chirp and
l...:44a.. &c .artlacc Lirdc tho hum al