Excerpt from Ariadne of Allan Water The pale glory of an early spring sun shone full on the white pillars of the old Virginia home, casting a long rectangle of shadow over kitchen, barn, smoke-house, chicken-house, and various other outer buildings that stood at the rear. Beyond this cluster of humble roofs began the old apple orchard, now in an ecstasy of bloom. The roseate billows flowed into a gentle dip, flooding the valley evenly, and scrambling, in some disorder, the slope of the further hillside. Near the top they paused abruptly at sight of a menacing line of ragged, gray bowlders, among which only a few young cedars had footing, and these seemed to scowl darkly as if defying anything so frivolous as a pink apple tree to gain their sky-poised eminence. On the flat altar of the nearest rock stood the blue clad 'figure of a girl, Ariadne, a slim young goddess of the spring, giving and receiving homage. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.