Beyond the last horizon’s rim, Beyond adventure’s farthest quest, Somewhere they rise, serene and dim, The happy, happy Hills of Rest. Upon their sunlit slopes uplift The castles we have built in Spain— While fair amid the summer drift Our faded gardens flower again. Sweet hours we did not live go by To soothing note on scented wing; In golden lettered volume lie The songs we tried in vain to sing. They all are there: the days of dream That built the inner lives of men! The silent, sacred years we deem The might be and the might have been. Some evening when the sky is gold, I’ll follow day into the west; Nor pause, nor heed, till I behold The happy, happy Hills of Rest. Jean was thinking of their talk as she sat out in the orchard today, trying to catch some of the fleeting beauty of its blossom laden trees. It was an accepted fact now, her trip abroad with Mrs. Newell, and they planned to sail the first week in September, so as to catch the Fall Academy and Exhibitions, all the way from London south to Rome. A letter from Bab had told her of the Phelps boy’s success; after fighting for it a year he had taken the _Prix de Rome_. This would give him a residence abroad, three years with all expenses paid, full art tuition and one thousand dollars in cash. Babbie had written: “I am teasing Mother to trot over there once again, and am pretty sure she will have to give in. The poor old dear, if only she would be contented to let me ramble around with Hedda, we would be absolutely safe, but she always acts as if she were the goose who had not only laid a golden egg, but had hatched it. And behold me as the resultant genius. Anyway we’ll all hope to meet you down at Campodino. I hear the Contessa’s villa there is perfectly wonderful. Mother says it’s just exactly like the one that Browning rented during his honeymoon. He tells about it in ‘DeGustibus.’ I believe most of the rooms have been Americanized since the Contessa married Carlota’s father, and you don’t have to go down to the seashore when you want to take a bath. But the walls are lovely and crumbly with plenty of old lizards running in and out of the mold. I envy you like sixty. I wish I had a Contessa to tuck me under her wing like that.” * * * * * “How are you getting along, girlie?” asked a well known voice behind her.