so graceful, so noble, so wonderful. She
must go a little nearer. Yet it was a good while before she could make
up her mind to leave the spot where this exquisite view had first
opened to her. She advanced then upon the lawn, going towards the house
and scarce taking her eyes from it. There were no paths cut anywhere;
it was no loss, for the greensward here was the perfection of English
turf; soft and fine and thick and even. It was a pleasure to step on
it; and Dolly stepped along, in a maze, caught in the meshes of the
beauty around her, and giving herself up to it in willing captivity.
But the lawn was enormously wider than she had supposed; her eye had
not been able to measure distances on this green level; she had walked
already a long way by the time she had got one-third of its breadth
behind her. Still, Dolly did not much consider that; her eye was fixed
on the house as she now drew nearer to it, busied in picking out the
details; and she only now and then cast a glance to right or left of
her, and never looked back. It did occur to her at last that she
herself was like a mere little speck cast away in this ocean of green,
toiling over it like an ant over a floor; and she hurried her steps,
though she was beginning to be tired. Slowly, slowly she went; half of
the breadth of lawn was behind her, and then three quarters; and the
building was unfolding at least its external organisation to her
curious eyes, and displaying some of its fine memberment and broken
surface and the resulting lights and shadows. Dolly almost forgot her
toil, wondering and delighted; though beginning also to question dimly
with herself how she was ever to find her way home! Go back over all
that ground she could not, she knew; as little could she have told
where was the point at the edge of the lawn by which she had entered
upon it. _That_ way she could not go; she had a notion that at the
house, or near it, she might find somebody to speak to from whom she
could get directions as to some other way. So she pressed on, feeding
her eyes as she approached it upon the details of the house.

When now more than three-fourths of the lawn ground was passed, one of
Dolly's side glances, intended to catch the beauty of the trees on the
lawn in their evening illumination, revealed to her a disagreeable
fact--that, namely, she was looked upon as an intruder by some of the
cattle; and that in especial a young bull was regarding her with
serious and om