My mother spent all her childhood and girlhood at this beautiful place. My Uncle Walter’s father lived here, and this was her home for many years. How often have I heard her describe every place about it. Aunt Mary tells me the house is different, and that some changes have been made in the arrangement of the grounds. My aunt brought her husband a handsome fortune, which enabled him to put up a fine, commodious mansion-house on the estate, and throw more of the land into the immediate grounds of the house.
Mountains surround us on all sides. A rapid, dashing stream rolls along some distance from the house, and an undulating lawn sweeps down from the back part of the house to it. It is a wild, romantic spot. This morning on awakening I threw on my dressing-gown, and passing through “our study,” as Adelan calls our pleasant room, stepped out on the balcony. It was early morn, and I watched the curling mists sweep up the sides of these bluish green hills, forming themselves into fantastic shapes, as they felt the penetrating heat and light of the sun. They curled, waved, rolled together, and as the sun rose higher, beaming upon them, they gradually melted away. I gazed with an elevated spirit, then turned back to my sleeping-room, and kneeling, thanked God fervently for having made so beautiful a world. In such moments I feel my blessed mother near me, and the fancied waving of her angel wings brings gentle soothings to my wailing spirit.
I have been here now two months, and how quickly has sped the time. I am quite domesticated. I ride on horseback in the morning and evening with Uncle Walter; walk, sing and play duets with dear Adelan; and read with Aunt Mary. She is studying German of me, and after our lesson is over I read to her from the works of my “_vaterland_.” She is fond of books and study, and her heart responded when I read to her to-day those hopeful cheering lines of Novalis.
“Let him who is unhappy in the outdoor world—who finds not what he seeks—let him go into the world of books and art—into Nature, that eternal antique and yet eternal novelty—let him live in that _Ecclesia pressa_ of the better world. Here he will be sure to find a beloved and a friend—a fatherland and a God.”