CHAPTER XX
A GOLDEN AGE
Almost at the end of a long walk, and as a small silver sun was leaving a pale and frosty sky, we began to ascend a broad, heaving meadow which was bordered on our right, on its eastern side, by a long, narrow copse of ash trees. At the top of the meadow, hardly a quarter of a mile away, was a little red farmhouse—yet not so little but that it rose with a maternal dignity among and above the sheds and stables, its children, and, like it, of antique red. The home and dependencies gave out a sense of solidity, independence and seclusion. Our hearts acknowledged at once that it was desirable, saluted it, and were calmly glad at the sight.
At that moment the tumult of a windy day was entirely gone. The north wind now lay dead upon the long white clouds in the east. The smoke from the farmhouse chimneys flowed southward along the top of the ash trees in a narrow, motionless rivulet in the calm air. Far off the hoofs of the returning hunt clattered decently, and combined with the dim memory of the wind in trees and sedge to give to the great meadow an emphasised tranquillity like that which fills an invalid's room when others
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