We left our light luggage at the station, and walked out from it, choosing at random the first white, undulating road that opened before us.
The little village clustered round the station, but Viola did not want to lodge in the village.
"We can come back to it if we are obliged, but we shall be sure to find a cottage or a wayside inn."
So we went on slowly in the transparent light of a perfect May afternoon.
There are periods when England both in climate and landscape is perfect, when her delicate, elusive loveliness can compare favourably with the barbaric glory, the wild magnificence of other countries.
On this afternoon a sort of rapture fell upon us both as we went down that winding road. The call of the cuckoo resounded from side to side, clear and sonorous like a bell, it echoed and re-echoed across our path under the luminous dome of the tranquil sky and over the hedges of flowering thorn, snow-white and laden with fragrance.
Everywhere the fruit trees were in bloom: delicate masses of white and pink rose against the smiling innocent blue of the sky.
"Now here is the very place," exclaimed Viola suddenly, and following her eyes I saw behind the high, green hedge bordering the road on which we were walking some red roofs rising, half hidden by the masses of white cherry blossom which hung over them. A cottage was there boasting a garden in front, a garden that was filled with lilac and laburnum not yet in bloom; filled to overflowing, for the lilac bulged all over the hedge in purple bunches and the laburnum poured its young leaves down on it. A tiny lawn, rather long-grassed and not innocent of daisies, took up the centre of the garden, and on to this two open casements looked; above again, two open windows, half-lost in the white clouds of cherry bloom.
"But how do you know they've any rooms?" I expostulated.
Viola looked at me with jesting scorn in her eyes.