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was no spot in all Elmwood that we children so dearly loved to visit as Hillside Cottage. No matter where our wanderings began—whether we started for the meadow, in pursuit of the rich strawberry—for the thick woods, where the wild flowers bloomed so luxuriantly, and the bright scarlet clusters of the partridge-berry, contrasting beautifully with its dark green leaves, sprang up at our feet—for the brook, to gather the shining pebbles, or to watch the speckled trout, as they darted swiftly through the water—no matter where our wanderings began, it was a strange thing if they did not terminate somewhere about the sweet wild place where Aunt Mary lived.

Now, prythee, gentle reader, do not picture to your “mind’s eye” a stately mansion with an unpretending name, when you read of Hillside Cottage. Neither was it a cottage ornée, with piazzas, and columns, and Venetian blinds. It was a low-roofed dwelling, and its walls had never been visited by a single touch of the painter’s brush: but the wild vines had sprung up around it, until their interlacing tendrils formed a beautiful network nearly all over the little building; and the moss upon the roof had been gathering there for many years, growing thicker and greener after the snows of each succeeding winter had rested upon it. It stood, as the name given it by the villagers indicated, upon the hillside, just in the edge of the woods that nearly covered the rounded summit of the hill; a little rivulet danced along, almost beneath the very windows, and at a short distance below fell over a ledge of rocks, forming a small but beautiful cascade, then, tired of its gambols, it flowed onwards as demurely as if it had never leaped gayly in the sunlight, or frolicked, like a child at play, with every flower that bent to kiss its bright waters. We thought there was no place where the birds sang half so sweetly, or where the air was so laden with fragrance; and sure am I there was no place where we were more cordially welcomed than in Aunt Mary’s cottage. 