Suddenly from its lofty station in the tower the clock chimed the hours as if admonishing us to use them rightly. To some our journey along the road that afternoon in July may have seemed but idleness, yet we lost few of those golden moments, and every change in the foreground gave us a new picture. Now it was a wooded hillside with numbers of deciduous trees crowning its low swelling top, with a faint radiance deepening into dreamy halftones on their eastern slopes; now several giant chestnuts lifting their proud crests of bloom above the valley; again it was an emerald meadow in which cattle were grazing. The rich old gold of ripening wheat and the blue haze hanging over the distant hills all lent an atmosphere of tranquillity which the notes of the thrush only emphasized. Now we felt a soft breeze that stole from the forest, deliciously tempering the oppressive air and bringing to us the spicy fragrance of mints, basswood flowers and elder. The country seemed to grow just a little more rugged as we proceeded over the widening high-ways. Soon we saw several machines at the side of the road on a grassy plot. Here we heard exclamations of delight from the people who were gazing in admiration over the bank of a stream at the gorge below. We soon learned that they had ample reason for their exclamations, to which we added our own. Below us was a chasm worn by the little Miami, ninety feet in depth. The ground on each side of the stream was a very garden of wild bloom. The sumac made a low border of glowing color; back of this flaming mass grew dogwood and Judas trees; while walnut, maple and linden, overrun with wild grape and woodbine, made mounds of bright green foliage, from which the ringing notes of the cardinal came to us above the song of the water. Every rock and ledge was cushioned with moss and ferns, intermingled with long green ropes of woodbine, Here were vast hanging gardens of many gradations of green, softened by gleams of pale light from the afternoon sun. The rays falling among these fern beds made rare masses of delicate mosaics, giving them that indescribable charm which the level beams produced. Perhaps thirty feet below us we saw a phoebe perched on a dead twig that grew from a cleft in the rock. His notes sounded full and clear, telling the joy of his admirable home. The path of the stream betrayed itself by a long line of moss and waving fern. The sweet breath of the summer woods floated around us. We gazed under a canopy of trees and saw a blossoming jungle of shrubs and flowers that seemed to have been awakened by some more potent force than that of the sun.