Eight o'clock of a May morning is a pleasant time, especially when May is near June. All the world was fresh and green and dewy; the very spirit of life in the air, and the very joy of life too, for a multitude of birds were filling it with their gleeful melody. How they sang! and how utterly perfumed was every breath that Rotha drew. She sniffed the air and tasted it, and breathed in full long breaths of it, and could not get enough. Breathing such air, one might put up with a good deal of disagreeableness in other things. The country immediately around Tanfield she found was flat; in the distance a chain of low hills shut in the horizon, blue and fair in the morning light; but near at hand the ground was very level. Fields of springing grain; meadows of lush pasture; orchards of apple trees just out of flower; a farmhouse now and then, with its comfortable barns and outhouses and cattle in the farmyard. Every here and there one or two great American elms, lifting their great umbrella-like canopies over a goodly extent of turf. Barns and houses, fences and gateways, all in order; nothing tumble-down or neglected to be seen anywhere; an universal look of thrift and business and comfort. The drive was inexpressibly sweet to Rotha, with her Medwayville memories all stirred and quickened, and the contrast of her later city life for so many years. She half forgot what lay behind her and what might be before; and with her healthy young spirit lived heartily in the present. The drive however was not very long. At the end of two miles the driver stopped and got down before a white gate enclosed in thick shrubbery. Nothing was to be seen but the gate and the green leafage of trees and shrubs on each side of it. The boy opened the gate, led his horse in, shut the gate behind him, then jumped up to his seat and drove on rapidly. The road curved in a semi-circle from that gate to another at some distance further along the road; and midway, at the point most distant from the road, stood a stately house. The approach was bordered with beds of flowers and shrubbery; a thick hedge of trees and shrubs ran along the fence that bordered the road and hid it from the house, sheltering the house also from the view of passers-by; and tall trees, some of them firs, increased the bowery and bosky effect. The house was well shut in. And the flower borders were neglected, and the road not trimmed; so that the impression was somewhat desolate. All windows and blinds and doors moreover were close and fastened; the look of life was entirely wanting. "Is there anybody here?" said Rotha, a little faint at heart. "I'll find out if there aint," said her boy companion, preparing to spring out of the wagon. "O give me the reins!" cried Rotha. "I'll hold them while you are gone."