There is no doubt that when Miss Babe Hightower stepped out on the porch, just after sunrise one fine morning in the spring of 1876, she had the opportunity of enjoying a scene as beautiful as any that nature offers to the human eye. She was poised¹, so to speak, on the shoulder of Lost Mountain, a spot made cheerful and hospitable² by her father's industry, and by her own inspiring presence. The scene, indeed, was almost portentous³ in its beauty. Away above her the summit of the mountain was bathed in sunlight, while in the valley below the shadows of dawn were still hovering—a slow-moving sea of transparent⁴ gray, touched here and there with silvery reflections of light. Across the face of the mountain that lifted itself to the skies, a belated cloud trailed its wet skirts, revealing, as it fled westward⁵, a panorama⁶ of exquisite⁷ loveliness.[134] The fresh, tender foliage⁸ of the young pines, massed here and there against the mountain side, moved and swayed in the morning breeze until it seemed to be a part of the atmosphere, a pale-green mist that would presently mount into the upper air and melt away. On a dead pine a quarter of a mile away, a turkey-buzzard sat with wings outspread to catch the warmth of the sun; while far above him, poised in the illimitable blue, serene⁹, almost motionless, as though swung in the centre of space, his mate overlooked the world. The wild honeysuckles clambered from bush to bush, and from tree to tree, mingling¹⁰ their faint, sweet perfume with the delicious odors that seemed to rise from the valley, and float down from the mountain to meet in a little whirlpool of

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