of pretty place."

"Pretty? Oh, PRETTY doesn't seem the right word to use. Nor beautiful,
either. They don't go far enough. Oh, it was wonderful--wonderful.
It's the first thing I ever saw that couldn't be improved upon by
imagination. It just satisfies me here"--she put one hand on her
breast--"it made a queer funny ache and yet it was a pleasant ache. Did
you ever have an ache like that, Mr. Cuthbert?"

"Well now, I just can't recollect that I ever had."

"I have it lots of time--whenever I see anything royally beautiful. But
they shouldn't call that lovely place the Avenue. There is no meaning
in a name like that. They should call it--let me see--the White Way of
Delight. Isn't that a nice imaginative name? When I don't like the name
of a place or a person I always imagine a new one and always think of
them so. There was a girl at the asylum whose name was Hepzibah Jenkins,
but I always imagined her as Rosalia DeVere. Other people may call that
place the Avenue, but I shall always call it the White Way of Delight.
Have we really only another mile to go before we get home? I'm glad and
I'm sorry. I'm sorry because this drive has been so pleasant and I'm
always sorry when pleasant things end. Something still pleasanter may
come after, but you can never be sure. And it's so often the case that
it isn't pleasanter. That has been my experience anyhow. But I'm glad to
think of getting home. You see, I've never had a real home since I can
remember. It gives me that pleasant ache again just to think of coming
to a really truly home. Oh, isn't that pretty!"

They had driven over the crest of a hill. Below them was a pond, looking
almost like a river so long and winding was it. A bridge spanned it
midway and from there to its lower end, where an amber-hued belt of
sand-hills shut it in from the dark blue gulf beyond, the water was a
glory of many shifting hues--the most spiritual shadings of crocus and
rose and ethereal green, with other elusive tintings for which no name
has ever been found. Above the bridge the pond ran up into fringing
groves of fir and maple and lay all darkly translucent in their wavering
shadows. Here and there a wild plum leaned out from the bank like a
white-clad girl tip-toeing to her own reflection. From the marsh at the
head of the pond came the clear, mournfully-sweet chorus of the frogs.
There was a little gray house peering around a white apple orchard on
a slope beyond and, although it was n