"
They began a gentle ascent, when directly across their way stretched the
blue water of a lake.
"Is here where we take the plunge?" inquired Douglas.
"No indeed!" answered Leslie. "Here we speed until we gather such momentum
that we shoot across the water and alight on the opposite bank without
stopping. Make your landing neatly, Rogers!"
"Why have we never been here before?" marvelled Douglas. "I don't remember
any other road one-half so inviting. Just look ahead here! See what a
beautiful picture!" He indicated a vine of creeping blackberry spreading
over gold sand, its rough, deeply serrated leaves of most artistic
cutting, with tufts of snowy bloom surrounding dark-tipped stamens in
their centres.
"Isn't it!" answered Mr. Winton. "You know what Whitman said of it?"
"I'm not so well read in Whitman as you are."
"Which is your distinct loss," said Mr. Winton. "It was he who wrote, 'A
running blackberry would adorn the parlours of Heaven.'"
"And so it would!" exclaimed Douglas. "What a frieze that would make for a
dining-room! Have you ever seen it used?"
"Never," answered Leslie, "or many other of our most exquisite forms of
wild growth.
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