elow which the water
sleeps. . . .

A pathway leads me by the winding of the river Ouse. Far on every side
stretches a homely landscape, tilth and pasture, hedgerow and clustered
trees, to where the sky rests upon the gentle hills. Slow, silent, the
river lapses between its daisied banks, its grey-green osier beds. Yonder
is the little town of St. Neots. In all England no simpler bit of rural
scenery; in all the world nothing of its kind more beautiful. Cattle are
lowing amid the rich meadows. Here one may loiter and dream in utter
restfulness, whilst the great white clouds mirror themselves in the water
as they pass above. . . .

I am walking upon the South Downs. In the valleys, the sun lies hot, but
here sings a breeze which freshens the forehead and fills the heart with
gladness. My foot upon the short, soft turf has an unwearied lightness;
I feel capable of walking on and on, even to that farthest horizon where
the white cloud casts its floating shadow. Below me, but far off, is the
summer sea, still, silent, its ever-changing blue and green dimmed at the
long limit with luminous noontide mist. Inland spreads the undulant
vastness of the sheep-spotted downs, beyond them the tillage and the
woods of Sussex weald, coloured like to the pure sky above them, but in
deeper tint. Near by, all but hidden among trees in yon lovely hollow,
lies an old, old hamlet, its brown roofs decked with golden lichen; I see
the low church-tower, and the little graveyard about it. Meanwhile, high
in the heaven, a lark is singing. It descends; it drops to its nest, and
I could dream that half the happiness of its exultant song was love of
England. . . .

It is all but dark. For a quarter of an hour I must have been writing by
a glow of firelight reflected on to my desk; it seemed to me the sun of
summer. Snow is still falling. I see its ghostly glimmer against the
vanishing sky. To-morrow it will be thick upon my garden, and perchance
for several days. But when it melts, when it melts, it will leave the
snowdrop. The crocus, too, is waiting, down there under the white mantle
which warms the earth.

XXIV.

Time is money--says the vulgarest saw known to any age or people. Turn
it round about, and you get a precious truth--money is time. I think of
it on these dark, mist-blinded mornings, as I come down to find a
glorious fire crackling and leaping in my study. Suppose I were so poor
that I could not afford