h
around the whole length of the house."

"Yes, Papa was crazy over the trailing roses, and kept planting them until
the house seems just a frame built to hold them, with a roof on it. But
you can see the river through the arches from three sides. Ben Cameron
helped me set that big beauty on the south corner the day he ran away to
the war----"

"The view is glorious!" Elsie exclaimed, looking in rapture over the river
valley.

The village of Piedmont crowned an immense hill on the banks of the Broad
River, just where it dashes over the last stone barrier in a series of
beautiful falls and spreads out in peaceful glory through the plains
toward Columbia and the distant sea. The muffled roar of these falls,
rising softly through the trees on its wooded cliff, held the daily life
of the people in the spell of distant music. In fair weather it soothed
and charmed, and in storm and freshet rose to the deep solemn growl of
thunder.

The river made a sharp bend as it emerged from the hills and flowed
westward for six miles before it turned south again. Beyond this six-mile
sweep of its broad channel loomed the three ranges of the Blue Ridge
Mountains, the first one dark, rich, distinct, clothed in eternal green,
the last one melting in dim lines into the clouds and soft azure of the
sky.

As the sun began to sink now behind these distant peaks, each cloud that
hung about them burst into a blazing riot of colour. The silver mirror of
the river caught their shadows, and the water glowed in sympathy.

As Elsie drank the beauty of the scene, the music of the falls ringing its
soft accompaniment, her heart went out in a throb of love and pity for the
land and its people.

"Can you blame us for loving such a spot?" said Marion. "It's far more
beautiful from the cliff at Lover's Leap. I'll take you there some day. My
father used to tell me that this world was Heaven, and that the spirits
would all come back to live here when sin and shame and strife were
gone."

"Are your father's poems published?" asked Elsie.

"Only in the papers. We have them clipped and pasted in a scrapbook. I'll
show you the one about Ben Cameron some day. You met him in Washington,
didn't you?"

"Yes," said Elsie quietly.

"Then I know he made love to you."

"Why?"

"You're so pretty. He couldn't help it."

"Does he make love to every pretty girl?"

"Always. It's his religion. But he does it so beautifully you can't help
believing it, unt