The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 | Page 2

travellers' escort from his infancy,) you are the first, the only one, in
whose behalf duty became a privilege.

Do you suppose I put faith in Michel, when, on my second Alpine
excursion, this companion of the previous day's peril placed himself in
close proximity to my mule, took the bridle with an air of satisfaction,
and whispered with an insinuating smile, "I go with you to-day; see,
there is another guide for Mademoiselle"? He was mistaken. It was my
young friend whom he was, on this occasion, destined to escort over
the mountain. He was as devoted to her as if she had been the apple of
his eye. Whether I followed next in the file, brought up the rear, or was
dashed over the precipice, I doubt if he looked behind him to discover.
Was I fool enough, then, to trust his professions? I acknowledge the
weakness. I was but a novice, he a practised courtier in the guise of a
mountaineer. To make a clean breast of it, I even suspect that his
self-gratulatory whisper is still ringing in my ear, for I find that
Mademoiselle and I are rivals in our devotion to Michel.
And Ann Harris, of Honeybourne, widow, portress of the ancient
village-church, surrounded by villagers' graves, approached by four
foot-paths over four stiles, perfect model of all the churches in all the
novels of English literature,--was it partiality for me, ancient matron, or
an eye to a silver sixpence, which made you, and makes you still, the
heroine of my day of romance? At any rate, I shall never cease to
invoke a blessing on that immaculate railway-company which decoyed
me from London into the heart of England, and, with a coolness
unexampled in the new districts of Iowa, dropped me at the sweetest
nook under the sun, there to wait three hours for the train which should
have taken me at once to Stratford,--three golden hours, in which I
might bask like a bee in a Honeybourne beyond my hopes.
Not that my Honeybourne was precisely the spot where the
railway-train left me standing deserted and alone,--alone save for a
Stratford furniture-dealer, who, unceremoniously set down in the midst
of his new stock of tables and chairs, and with nothing else in sight but
a platform, a shed, and me, looked at the last-mentioned object for
sympathy, while he cursed the departing train and swore the usual oath
of vengeance, namely, that he would never travel that road again.
He got red with passion and cursed the road; I stared round me and kept

cool. Was I more philosophical than he? No, but there was this
difference: he was bent on business, I on pleasure; he was in a hurry, I
could afford to wait.
Three hours,--and only a platform, a shed, and an infuriated
furniture-dealer to keep me company! This was the Honeybourne
station, but not Honeybourne. I found a railway-official hard by, had
my baggage stowed in the shed, crossed the platform, looked at my
watch to make sure of the time, then struck out into the open country.
Through shady lanes, over stiles, across the fields, on I went, in the
direction pointed out to me by two laborers whom I met at starting. The
sweet white may smiled at me from the hedges; the great sober eyes of
the cattle at pasture reflected my sense of contentment; the nonchalant
English sheep showed no signs of disturbance at my approach (unlike
the American species, which invariably take to their heels); the children
set to watch them lifted their heads from the long grass and looked
lazily after me, never doubting my right to tread the well-worn
foot-path with which every green field beguiled me on. I came out in
the vegetable-garden of a rustic cottage, one of some dozen
thatched-roofed dwellings, which, with the church and simple
parsonage, constituted sweet Honeybourne. "Oh that it were the bourne
from which no traveller returns!" was the thought of my heart, as, with
a dreamy sense of longings fulfilled, I wandered through the miniature
village, across it, around it, beyond it, and back to it again, as a bee
saturated with sweets floats round the hive.
And now to my queen-bee, Ann Harris, aforesaid!
"All the way from Lunnon! Alone, and such a distance! Bless my
heart!" cried the primitive Ann, with hands and eyes uplifted. "Come in
and rest you, and have something to eat! I have bread and butter, sweet
and good, and will boil the kettle and make you a cup of tea, if you say
so."
I had already made the circuit of the church, strolled among the ancient
gravestones, crossed the moss-covered bridge, threaded the paths
beneath the hawthorn, had a vision of boundless beauty, drunk in the
silence,