Once when Harriet returned by stage-coach from a visit to her relatives down in Guilford, she could not restrain her raptures on beholding her mountains again. As the quaint old coach went lumbering along the winding road, the keen-eyed little girl leaned out of the window, peering in every direction, determined to let no bluebird’s flight escape her and no columbine flower pass unadmired. She took in all the sweeping bends of the beautiful brown river and watched the curves of water as they flowed over the shining rocks. After a while the coach wound up amid hemlock forests whose solemn shadows were all aglow with pink clouds of blossoming laurel. Presently they entered into great vistas of mountains whose cloudy, purple heads stretched and veered around the path like moving forms in a dream. There were the hills which meant home. Writing about this years afterward, she cried out, “Can there be anything on earth as beautiful as these mountain rides in New England?” So she gave to her childhood’s home the name of Cloudland, and its inheritance of clear air and height and spaciousness became a part of her nature. Any one would have loved the quiet village in 1811, the year when Harriet Beecher was born, with the large Green in the center on which stood the meeting-house where her honored father, Dr. Lyman Beecher, preached. From here extended to the four points of the compass the four spacious avenues, North, South, East, and West Streets, all of them thickly planted with double rows of fine elm trees, through which one could see the stately colonial mansions that had been there since before the days of the Revolution. These mansions had looked upon many a thrilling scene, for in those Revolutionary days the town of Litchfield had been a place of great activity. The direct state road from Boston across to West Point and thence down the river to the city of New York passed at that time through the town, making connection with the station for military stores that were kept there. So on training days there would be dramatic episodes on the ample Green, while on many a dark night that great message-bearer, Paul Revere, would ride swiftly and mysteriously through the town.