Apologies for the seeming neglect were offered and accepted, then she explained that both roads went to Van Buren but not to Greer Spring, where in due time we at length arrived. The house being in one corner of a "forty" and the spring in that diagonally opposite, there was a walk of nearly that distance before coming to an old road inclining steeply down into what looked to be a narrow canon. About midway of this sloping road, the space confined between perpendicular walls, rising to heights above on one side and descending to the stream on the other, widens suddenly and a picturesque old mill comes into view, it having been wholly screened from the approach by the rich growth of shrubs and trees. Chief in abundance among this luxury of leaf was the hydrangea,--a favorite shrub largely imported into this country from Japan before it was discovered as a native. The mill site seems to have been selected for its beauty although we were told that at this point the stream is seventy-two feet wide, and two and one half feet deep, but could be raised thirty feet with perfect safety by a dam, for which the rock is already on the ground and much of it broken ready for use. The flow is said to be two hundred and eighty yards per minute, with no appreciable variation, and never freezes. The high walls of the Greer Spring gorge will, of course, far more than double the value it would otherwise possess, when it becomes desirable to control and turn to practical account the power now going so cheerily to waste, but the artistic loss will be proportionately severe. The old mill was the scene of great activity in former times, but was closed on account of an unfortunate accident and for years has had no other duty than simply to serve as a portion of the landscape. Just beyond, the canon makes a curving bend, the road dwindles to a narrow path and we behold the most beautiful scene imaginable. The canon has come to an end and is shut in by a graceful curve of the high, perpendicular grey walls that are crowned with trees and shrubs, and decked below with a thick carpet of bright green moss. In this basin, which is nearly one hundred feet across, Greer Spring plunges up from beneath through an opening nine feet in diameter, in the midst of a pool of water six feet deep, and having an unvarying temperature of forty-nine degrees throughout the year. This water is so perfectly clear that not the least pebble is obscured from view, and the color scheme is most marvelous. [Illustration: Greer Spring. Page 88.]