Beyond rose hills--hill
upon hill lit patchily by the sun, so that their contours were a
mingling of brilliant purple heather, red-brown bracken, and indigo
shadow. Far down the valley the stream glinted, mirror-like, through a
veil of trees.
And Tony spoke of tea!
I dragged my eyes from the magnet of the view and found that I had
stopped the car within a few yards of a little hotel that must have
been planted there originally by someone with a soul. It lay by the
open roadside five miles from anywhere. It was built of the rough
grey-green stone of the district, but it was rescued from the
commonplace by its leaded windows, the big old beams that angled across
its white plastered gables, and by the clematis and late tea roses that
clung about its porch.
I could hardly blame Tony for her materialism. The hotel blended
admirably with its surroundings. There was nothing about it of the
beerhouse-on-the-mountain-top so dear to the German mind. It looked
quiet, refined and restful, and one felt instinctively that it would be
managed in a fashion in keeping with all about it.
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