divinely beautiful

He felt as he had once felt in his rash youth when another boy had enticed him on the mery-go- round at a picnic.
 "Well, whatever it was it must have been something nice because she was divinely beautiful, Have you ever imagined what it must feel like to bo divinely beautiful?"
 "Well now,no, I haven't," confessed Matthew ingenuously.



"I have, often. Which would you rath be if you had the choice-divinely beutiful or dazzlingly clever or angelically good?"
 "Well now, I-I don't know exactly."
 "Neithr do I. I can never dicide. But it doesn't make much real difference for it isn't likely I'll ever be either. It's certain I'll never be angelically good. Mrs. Spencer says-oh, Mr. Cuthbert! Oh, Mr. Cuthbert! Oh!!!!!!!

 



  That was no Mrs. Spencer had said; neither had the child tumbled out of the buggy nor had Matthew done anything astonishing. They had simply rounded a curve in the road and found themselves in the " Avenue."
 The "Avenue, so called by the Newbrige people, was a stretch of road four or five hundred yards long, completely arched over with huge, ide-spreading apple-trees,planted years ago by an eccntric old farmer. Overhead was one long canopy of snowy fragrant bloom. Below the boughs the air was full of a purple twilight and far ahed a glimpse of painted sunset sky shone like a great rose window at the end of a cathedral aisle.



 Its beauty seemed to strike the child dumb. She leaned back in the buggy, her thin hands clasped before her, her face littled rapturously to the white splendor above. Even when they had passed out and were driving down the long slope to Newbridge she never moved or spoke. Still with rapt face she gaze afar into the sunset west, with eyes that saw visions trooping splendidly across that glowing background. Through Newbridge, a bustling little village where dogs barked at them and small boys hooted and curious faces peered from the windows, they drove, still in silence.When three more miles had dropped away behind them the child had not spoken. She could keep silence, it was evident, as energetically as she could talk.

 "I guess you're feeling pretty tird and hungry," Matthew ventured at last, accounting for her long visitation of dumbness with the only reason he could think of. "But we haven't very far to go now- only another mile."
 She came out of her reverie with a deep sigh and looked at him with the dreamy gaze of a soul that had been wondering afar, star-led.



 "Oh, Mr. Cuthbert," she whspered, " that place we came through - that white place- what was it?"
 "Well now, you must mean the Avenue," said Matthew after a few moments' profound reflection. "It is a kind of pretty place."
 " Pretty? Oh, pretty doesn't seem the right word to use. Nor beautiful, either. They don't go far enough. Oh, it was wonderful- wonderful. It's the first thing I ever saw that couldn't be improved upon by imagination. It just satisfied me here"- she put one hand on her breast- " it made a queer funny ache and yet it was  pleasant ache. Did you ever hav an ache like that, Mr. Cuthbert?"



 "Well now, I just can't recollect that I ever had."
 "I have it lots of times -whenever I see anything royally beautiful. But they shouldn't call that lovely place the Avenue. There is no meaning in a name like that. They should call it- let me see- the White Way of  Delight. Isn't that a nice imaginative name? When I  don't like the name of a place or a person I always imagine a new one and always think of them so. There was a girl at the asylum whose name was Hepzibah Jenkins, but I always imagined her as Rosalia DeVere. Other people may call that place the Avenue, but I shll always call it the White Way of Delight. Have we really only another mile to go before we get home? I'm glad and I'm sory. I'm sorry because this drive has been so pleasant and I'm always sorry when pleasant things end.