onderful.

So curtains were really white! how strange it seemed. In town they are
always grey or brown, and the air was light and thin with a sweet
scent, and the sky was blue!!!

It was a fine day, the sun poured down riotously through the
snow-white bloom of the cherry-tree, two cuckoos were calling to each
other from opposite sides of the wood, and their note, so soft in the
distance, so powerful when near, resounded through the shining air
till it seemed full of the sound of a great clanging bell, musical and
beautiful.

Viola was delighted; her keen ear enjoyed the unusual sound.

"Oh, Trevor, that repeated note, how glorious it is! It reminds me of
a sustained note in Wagner's _Festpiel_. I do wish they'd go on."

She seated herself by the window listening with rapture in her eyes.
The woman of the house brought in our coffee, but I doubt if we should
have got any breakfast, only the cuckoos wanted theirs and fortunately
flew off to get it.

When the glorious musical bell rang out far on the other side of the
wood, dimmed by distance, Viola came reluctantly to the table.

"How delicious this is! this being in the country _just at first_.
Look at the table with its jonquils! isn't it pretty? Look at the
honey and cream!"

"I think you had better eat some of it," I answered; "or at least pour
out the coffee."

Viola laughed and did so, and we breakfasted joyously, full of the
curious gayety that belongs to novelty alone.

Then we went out, and the outside was equally entrancing. The scent of
the lilac seemed to hang like a canopy in the air under which we
walked. There was a fat thrush on the lawn, young and tailless. The
sight of him and the dappled marks on his white breast gave me a
strange pleasure.

We sat down on the turf finally where the cherry-tree cast a light
shade, a sort of white shadow in the sunlight, from its blossoms.
Viola thrust her hands down into the cool, green grass.

"How lovely this is," she said, looking up the tall tree above us.
"Look at its great tent of white blossoms against the blue sky; it's
like a picture of Japan!"

After a time, when we were tired of the garden, we went out and turned
down the white road to explore the country.

It was very hot, and the glare from the road excessive, but as it was
all new to us it all seemed delightful, even to the white dust that
coated our lips and got into our eyes whenever the breeze stirred.

After about a mile and a half