Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: " I told you it was Mr. Charlton ! " says Minnie, triumphantly. Flora says nothing ; she merely unfastens the large domestic apron which covers the front of her dress, and walks out of the pantry. CHAPTER III. "my Love She's But A Lassie Yet." It is not too much to say that Mr. Charlton has heen very pleasantly impressed by all that he has seen so far of the home of the Tyrrells. The beauty of the situation charms his eye at once— especially since it bursts upon him with sudden effect from his having approached the house in the rear. " This is Arcadia indeed ! " he thinks, when he sees the outspread beauty of the fertile valley, the bright river winding through it, the magical distance beyond—mountains overtopping mountains until the farthest heights melt into blue infinity—cloud-shadows shifting and falling over the wooded hillsides, a clearness in all the tints, a brilliancy in the atmosphere which is altogether beyond the power of words to describe. He is astonished as well as charmed. It is so seldom in life that one's longing for an ideal pleasure or happiness of any kind is gratified, that one is justified in the incredulity with whichone generally regards such a gratification when it comes. Charlton has told himself more than once since he began his journey that he is a fool—that he will find nothing at his destination to repay him for such an expedition. Now, all in a minute, he feels that he is repaid. Already a subtile sense of repose is borne to the weary brain and overstrained nerves. Let his work be what it will —and he would be the first to tell you that it is poor enough—his is the true artistic temperament which feels beauty of color, form, and tone, in every fibre. This bright loveliness thrills him as one keenly alive to music is thrilled by the fi...