Pushing open the gate that sagged dejectedly from its leaning post, the artist went down the path, and found himself in a charming nook--shut in on every side by the forest vegetation that, watered by the spring, grew rank and dense.
For a space on the gate side of the spring, the sod was firm and smooth--with a gray granite boulder in the center of the little glade, and, here and there, wild rose-bushes and the slender, gray trunks of alder trees breaking through.

From the higher branches of the alders that shut out the sky with their dainty, silvery-green leaves, hung--with many a graceful loop and knot--ropes of wild grape-vine and curtains of virgin's-bower.

Along the bank below the old fence, the wild blackberries disputed possession with the roses; while the little stream was mottled with the tender green of watercress and bordered with moss and fragrant mint.

Above the arroyo willows, on the farther side of the glade, Oak Knoll, with bits of the pine-clad Galenas, could be glimpsed; but on the orchard side, the vine-dressed bank with the old gate under the mistletoe oak shut out the view.

Through the screen of alder and grape and willow and virgin's-bower the sunlight fell, as through the delicate traceries of a cathedral window.