So, on through the deepening dusk we drive—leaving the French Broad Valley behind, but keeping in sight the graceful range of mountains with the sunset pomp dying away beyond. O wild and beautiful country, elevated so far above the rest of the world, and encircled by granite barriers, if it were possible to write down all that makes your charm, how soon fame would come to you!—but, then, perhaps fault-finding tourists and inane pleasure-seekers might come too, so that your virgin freshness would be brushed away, and the nymphs and dryads which now seem to haunt the depths of your valleys and the far retreats of your hills would vanish altogether. Presently—when twilight has purpled and softened all the scene, when the rosy clouds have become gray, filmy vapors, and only a golden glow is left of the sunset pageant—we bowl down to another stretch of lowland. “Transylvania seems to be rich in rivers,” I remark. “Pray, what stream is this?” “Little River,” answers Eric, whose foot is now indeed on his native heath, since he has fished in these waters and hunted over these hills until both are thoroughly familiar to him. “And yonder is the house where I hope we can stay all night.” He points with his whip as he speaks, and we follow the gesture with our glance. After some of our experiences in the matter of wayside lodging, this which we behold appears very encouraging. It is a comfortable farm-house, placed near the road, with rich fields stretching back, and wooded heights rising near at hand. “Leaving here,” remarks Eric, “the road turns abruptly around those hills, and enters a gorge, hemmed by mountains on one side and the river on the other.—If these people won’t take us in, you must decide, mother, whether you had rather dare the dangers of the pass, or—camp out.” “I’ll wait to decide until they refuse to take us in,” says Aunt Markham, philosophically. They do not refuse. Hospitality—that great virtue which is always more or less associated with a pastoral life—now, as ever, pleads in our behalf. The woman of the house at first demurs: “We are not prepared to accommodate travelers,” she says; “we are not accustomed to takin’ them in.” But, when Eric represents that if we are _not_ taken in our strait will be desperate, she yields at once: “You may come in, then,” she says, “and I’ll do my best to oblige you.” After this, we cannot be ungrateful enough to find fault—even if fault there was to find. When they have opened their doors, these mountain people seem to open their hearts as well, and no one can travel through the country without receiving much kindness and invariable civility—unless his experience be widely different from ours.