A
higher hill, wooded with evergreens and bossed with boulders, made a
background behind it, on the right, for a large, low cottage of clear
gray granite, with broad piazzas curtained with Virginia creepers and
monthly honeysuckles, and cloistered on the south. In front of the
cottage was a shaven lawn, rimmed with a hedge of graceful barberries,
and lighted up by small circular spots of brown earth, teeming with
salvia and other splendid autumn flowers. Beyond and on the left ran a
long reach of rocky headlands, burning with golden-rod and wild-rose
berries mingled with purple asters and white spiraea, and all along from
below, but very near, spread out far and wide the inexpressible ocean.
It was a rough, ridgy, sage-greenish, gray ocean, I remember, that
morning, full of tumble and toss and long scalloped lines of spent foam,
covered over with a dim, low half-dome of sky,--with seagulls
flickering, and here and there a small, wild, ragged gypsy of a cloud,
of a little darker gray, scudding lawlessly under,--and threw out in the
strongest contrast the brilliant hues and sharp, clear outlines of the
shore.
The Doctor sprang from the chaise, left me in it, and threw me the
reins. I always wished he wouldn't, but he always would.
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