“I sometimes think there can be nothing in Europe more beautiful,” Miss Lucy said at length. “It is my Alps. Ah, if one could paint that glow!”
Winthrop glanced back. “I wish you could have seen some pictures in the Academy, Aunt Lucy;” and then he went on to describe them in an eager manner, evincing much genuine love for beauty, and a kind of fitness, for his tone was low and earnest, without any assumption of manishness.
Meanwhile as they wound slowly along, the sky changed from the crimson gold, to orange, then to a yellow tint, sending out long rays into the frost-white, not unlike an Aurora. All the edges of the hills were purple and blue, with a peculiar velvety softness, losing themselves presently in hazy indistinctness.
“Kenton,” Lucy said, “this place ought to be re-christened. Sunset Hill would be more appropriate. There is no such enchanting sunset for miles around.”
“But it isn’t always that,” in his dry humorous way. “And it is always round.”
“Then mine shall be its holiday name, a kind of golden remembrance.”
“It is beautiful;” Miss Churchill said with deep feeling. “Miss Fanny, your father preached a good sermon last Sunday morning, about our longing for loveliness and grandeur which was far away, and not enjoying that right beside us, and our desiring to do some great thing, waiting years for the opportunity, when we might have made our lives rich with the small daily deeds that are at our very finger ends. And how many of us long for Italy when we have clear skies and glowing sunsets at home that we know nothing about!”
“Because such lives are crowded full to repletion. I sometimes wonder if we do not have too much instead of not enough? I find a large world right around here, because I can’t get out comfortably to any larger one.”
“And because you see the beauty in every thing,” returned Fanny softly. “It’s just like daily bread, the now, and here. We need not starve to-day because of a famine coming a hundred years hence.”
Mr. Churchill raised his grave eyes and smiled, just a little. They moved on quietly again, the wide glory of the twilight heavens falling gently over, clasping hands with the indistinct outlines of the beautiful earth. The creek went rippling and winding around, making a pleasant stir, and the insects began to chirp in low tones as if not quite sure the night was coming.