walks in the world more wholly
beautiful from beginning to end. On no account, therefore, should the
traveller, all unsuspecting of so much beauty so near at hand, be
persuaded to go to Stubbenkammer by road. The road will give him merely
a pretty country drive, taking him the shortest way, quite out of sight
of the sea; the path keeps close to the edge of the cliffs, and is a
series of exquisite surprises. But only the lusty and the spare must
undertake it, for it is not to be done under three hours, and is an
almost continual going down countless steps into deep ravines, and up
countless steps out of them again. You are, however, in the shade of
beeches the whole time; and who shall describe, as you climb higher and
higher, the lovely sparkle and colour of the sea as it curls, far below
you, in and out among the folds of the cliffs?

Mrs. Harvey-Browne was sufficiently spare to enjoy the walk. Ambrose was
perfectly content telling us about Nieberlein's new work. I was
perfectly content too, because only one ear was wanted for Nieberlein,
and I still had one over for the larks and the lapping of the water,
besides both my happy eyes. We did not hurry, but lingered over each
beauty, resting on little sunny plateaus high up on the very edge of the
cliffs, where, sitting on the hot sweet grass, we saw the colour of the
sea shine through the colour of the fringing scabious--a divine meeting
of colours often to be seen along the Ruegen coast in July; or, in the
deep shade at the bottom of a ravine, we rested on the moss by water
trickling down over slimy green stones to the sea which looked, from
those dark places, like a great wall of light.

Mrs. Harvey-Browne listened with a placid pride to her son's
explanations of the scope and nature of Nieberlein's book. His
enthusiasm made him talk so much that she, perforce, was silent; and her
love for him written so plainly on her face showed what she must have
been like in her best days, the younger days before her husband got his
gaiters and began to grieve. Besides, during the last and steepest part
of the walk we were beyond the range of other tourists, for they had all
dropped off at the Waldhalle, a place half-way where you drink, so that
there was nothing at all to offend her. We arrived, therefore, at
Stubbenkammer about six o'clock in a state of perfect concord,
pleasantly tired, and hot enough to be glad we had got there. On the
plateau in front of the restaurant--the