From the piazza where we had sat last night, a flight
of steps led down. I followed it, and found another flight,
and still another. The last landed me in a gravelled path; one
track went down the steep face of the bank, on the brow of
which the hotel stood; another track crossed that and wound
away to my right, with a gentle downward slope. I went this
way. The air was delicious; the woods were musical with birds
the morning light filled my pathway and, glancing from trees
or rocks ahead of me, lured me on with a promise of glory. I
seemed to gather the promise as I went, and still I was drawn
further and further. Glimpses of the river began to show
through the trees; for all this bank side was thickly wooded.
I left walking and took to running. At last I came out upon
another gravelled walk, low down on the hillside, lying
parallel with the river and open to it. Nothing lay between
but some masses of granite rock, grey and lichened, and a soft
fringe of green underbrush and small wood in the intervals.
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