His voice set pleasant
waves of sound in motion towards me, and the actual words, if I remember
rightly, were--
"You are a stranger in these parts?" or "Is not this part of the country
strange to you?"
There was no "sir," nor any outward and visible sign of the deference
usually paid by real country folk to the town-bred visitor, but in its
place a gentleness, almost a sweetness, of polite sympathy that was far
more of a compliment than either.
I answered that I was wandering on foot through a part of the country
that was wholly new to me, and that I was surprised not to find a place
of such idyllic loveliness marked upon my map.
"I have lived here all my life," he said, with a sigh, "and am never
tired of coming back to it again."
"Then you no longer live in the immediate neighbourhood?"
"I have moved," he answered briefly, adding after a pause in which his
eyes seemed to wander wistfully to the wealth of blossoms beyond the
window; "but I am almost sorry, for nowhere else have I found the
sunshine lie so warmly, the flowers smell so sweetly, or the winds and
streams make such tender music.
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