With fairest flowers, Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele--"

When I removed into the country, it was to occupy an old-fashionedfarm-house, which had no piazza--a deficiency the more regretted,because not only did I like piazzas, as somehow combining the cozinessof in-doors with the freedom of out-doors, and it is so pleasant toinspect your thermometer there, but the country round about was such apicture, that in berry time no boy climbs hill or crosses vale withoutcoming upon easels planted in every nook, and sun-burnt painterspainting there. A very paradise of painters. The circle of the stars cutby the circle of the mountains. At least, so looks it from the house;though, once upon the mountains, no circle of them can you see. Had thesite been chosen five rods off, this charmed ring would not have been.

The house is old. Seventy years since, from the heart of the HearthStone Hills, they quarried the Kaaba, or Holy Stone, to which, eachThanksgiving, the social pilgrims used to come. So long ago, that, indigging for the foundation, the workmen used both spade and axe,fighting the Troglodytes of those subterranean parts--sturdy roots of asturdy wood, encamped upon what is now a long land-slide of sleepingmeadow, sloping away off from my poppy-bed. Of that knit wood, but onesurvivor stands--an elm, lonely through steadfastness.