No path was trodden in its vicinity; and, to
reach our happy home, there was need of putting back, with force,
the foliage of many thousands of forest trees, and of crushing to
death the glories of many millions of fragrant flowers. Thus it was
that we lived all alone, knowing nothing of the world without the
valley- I, and my cousin, and her mother.
From the dim regions beyond the mountains at the upper end of our
encircled domain, there crept out a narrow and deep river, brighter
than all save the eyes of Eleonora; and, winding stealthily about in
mazy courses, it passed away, at length, through a shadowy gorge,
among hills still dimmer than those whence it had issued. We called it
the "River of Silence"; for there seemed to be a hushing influence
in its flow. No murmur arose from its bed, and so gently it wandered
along, that the pearly pebbles upon which we loved to gaze, far down
within its bosom, stirred not at all, but lay in a motionless content,
each in its own old station, shining on gloriously forever.
The margin of the river, and of the many dazzling rivulets that
glided through devious ways into its channel, as well as the spaces
that extended from the margins away down into the depths of the
streams until they reached the bed of pebbles at the bottom,- these
spots, not less than the whole surface of the valley, from the river
to the mountains that girdled it in, were carpeted all by a soft green
grass, thick, short, perfectly even, and vanilla-perfumed, but so
besprinkled throughout with the yellow buttercup, the white daisy, the
purple violet, and the ruby-red asphodel, that its exceeding beauty
spoke to our hearts in loud tones, of the love and of the glory of
God.
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