ody wished to talk himself;
but one thing clearly prohibited in these warm, green places was to be
active. The actively inclined had to pass through the gate in the hedge,
and there, by turning to the left, they would find a back-water with a
whole village of boat-houses. There, to suit the measure of their
activity, they could equip themselves with the required materials; there
were punts at their disposal, or they could take unto themselves a
canoe, or a portly, broad-beamed ark, or risk themselves in outriggers
of extreme length and uncertain stability.

The house itself afforded no less scope for the various inclinations of
its inhabitants. There was a charming drawing-room where any one could
sit up, take notice, and be formal. There was an immense billiard-room,
with an alcove containing a couple of card tables, so far away from the
billiards that the sound of cannons reached the ear of the bridge-player
in a manner that could not disconcert; while for wet days and the more
exuberantly inclined there was a squash-racquet court where any amount
of exercise could be enjoyed with the smallest possible expenditure of
time.

The two original cottages had been run together, and a hall now
comprised the whole ground floor of both. Wooden joists of the
floors above made parallels down the ceiling, and it was still lit
through the small-paned windows of the original cottages, through
the squares of which the landscape outside climbed up and down over
the ridges of the glass. At one end was the fireplace, which had
once been a kitchen-range; but that removed, a large open hearth,
burning a wood fire when fires were necessary, was flanked by two
settles within the chimney-space.

At the other end, and facing it, the corresponding kitchen range of
the second cottage had also been cleared out, but the chimney above
it had been boarded in, and a broad, low settee ran round the three
sides of it. Above this settee, and planted into the wall, so that
the heads of those uprising should not come in contact with the
shelves, was a bookcase full of delectable volumes, all fit to be
taken down at random, and opened at random, all books that were
familiar friends to any who had friends among that entrancing
family. Tennyson was there, and all Thackeray; Omar Khayyam was
there, and Alice in Wonderland; Don Quixote rubbed covers with John
Inglesant, and Dickens found a neighbour in Stevenson.

But this was emphatically a room to sit