When we got out at the station a robin was singing, the first bird we had heard that year. The note was so full and pure and Eden-like that it caught one's breath. It went with the bronze-green of maples and elms, with the golden westering sunshine, and with the air that was like the distillation of air and yet had a sharp northern tang in it. Driving in the motor of the inn, through the main street of the town, we saw that most of the white houses had a roomy Colonial dignity, and that orchards of apple, cherry, and plum, with acres of small fruit, surrounded them all. Having learned on the train that jam was the staple of the little town's prosperity, we could see jam everywhere. Jam was in the cherry-trees covered with dainty white blossoms, in the plum-trees showing but a flower or two, and in the apple-trees scarcely in bud. Jam was in the long straight lines which we were told represented strawberries, and in the shrubberies of currant. Jam was along the roadsides where the raspberry was clothing its sprawling bines with leaves, and wherever the blueberry gladdened the waste places with its millions of modest bells. Jam is a toothsome, homey thing to which no woman with a housekeeping heart can be insensible. The thought of it did something to bring Mrs. Brokenshire's thoughts back to the simple natural ways she had forsworn, even before reaching the hotel. The hotel was no more than a farm-house that had expanded itself half a dozen times. We traversed all sorts of narrow halls and climbed all sorts of narrow staircases, till at last we emerged on a corner suite, where the view led us straight to the balcony. Not that it was an extraordinary view; it was only a peaceful and a noble one. An undulating country held in its folds a scattering of lakes, working up to the lines of the southern New Hampshire hills which closed the horizon to the north. Green was, of course, the note of the landscape, melting into mauve in the mountains and saffron in the sky. Spacing out the perspective a mauve mist rose between the ridges, and a mauve light rested on the three white steeples of the town. The town was perhaps two hundred feet below us and a mile away, nestling in a feathery bower of verdure. When I joined Mrs. Brokenshire she was grasping the balcony rail, emitting little "Ohs!" and "Ahs!" of ecstasy. She drew long breaths, like a thirsty person drinking. She listened to the calling and answering of birds with face illumined and upturned. It was a bath of the spirit to us both. It was cleansing and healing; it was soothing and restful and corrective, setting what was sane within us free.