dashes
like wave embroidery on seashore cliffs. How true and substantial is
this shadow beauty, and with what sublime extravagance is beauty thus
multiplied! The big orange lilies are now arrayed in all their glory of
leaf and flower. Noble plants, in perfect health, Nature's darlings.

_June 20._ Some of the silly sheep got caught fast in a tangle of
chaparral this morning, like flies in a spider's web, and had to be
helped out. Carlo found them and tried to drive them from the trap by
the easiest way. How far above sheep are intelligent dogs! No friend
and helper can be more affectionate and constant than Carlo. The noble
St. Bernard is an honor to his race.

The air is distinctly fragrant with balsam and resin and mint,--every
breath of it a gift we may well thank God for. Who could ever guess that
so rough a wilderness should yet be so fine, so full of good things. One
seems to be in a majestic domed pavilion in which a grand play is being
acted with scenery and music and incense,--all the furniture and action
so interesting we are in no danger of being called on to endure one dull
moment. God himself seems to be always doing his best here, working like
a man in a glow of enthusiasm.

_June 21._ Sauntered along the river-bank to my lily gardens. The
perfection of beauty in these lilies of the wilderness is a never-ending
source of admiration and wonder. Their rhizomes are set in black mould
accumulated in hollows of the metamorphic slates beside the pools, where
they are well watered without being subjected to flood action. Every
leaf in the level whorls around the tall polished stalks is as finely
finished as the petals, and the light and heat required are measured for
them and tempered in passing through the branches of over-leaning trees.
However strong the winds from the noon rainstorms, they are securely
sheltered. Beautiful hypnum carpets bordered with ferns are spread
beneath them, violets too, and a few daisies. Everything around them
sweet and fresh like themselves.

Cloudland to-day is only a solitary white mountain; but it is so
enriched with sunshine and shade, the tones of color on its big domed
head and bossy outbulging ridges, and in the hollows and ravines between
them, are ineffably fine.

_June 22._ Unusually cloudy. Besides the periodical shower-bearing
cumuli there is a thin, diffused, fog-like cloud overhead. About .75 in
all.

_June 23._ Oh, these vast, calm, measureless mountain days, i