ike dimensions, on
a space of high-level ground to the eastward of the village. It is
approached by a narrow lane, beyond which lie fields and open country.
Having at first been quite a small cottage, it has been added to by
successive owners, and is, consequently, quite destitute of external
or internal uniformity. My own library, and the bedrooms above it,
are, for the present, the latest additions to the structure; though I
hope some day to build on a little room which I shall not venture to
call a museum, but which shall contain my Egyptian antiquities and
other collections.

The little house stands in one acre of ground, closely walled in, and
surrounded by high shrubs and lofty larch trees. It is up and down a
straight path in the shade of these larch trees that I take my daily
exercise; and if I am to enter into such minor particulars as are dear
to the writers and readers of "At Home" articles, I may mention that a
dial-register is affixed to the wall of a small grape-house at one end
of this path, by means of which I measure off my regular half-mile
before breakfast, my half mile after breakfast, and the mile or more
with which I finish up my pedestrian duties in the late afternoon. To
walk these two miles _per diem_ is a Draconian law which I impose upon
myself during all seasons of the year. When the snow lies deep in
winter, it is our old gardener's first duty in the morning to sweep
"Miss Edwards' path," as well as to clear two or three large spaces on
the lawn, in which the wild birds may be fed. The wild birds, I should
add, are our intimate friends and perennial visitors, for whom we keep
an open _table d'hote_ throughout the year. By feeding them in summer
we lose less fruit than our neighbors; and by feeding them in winter
we preserve the lives of our little summer friends, whose songs are
the delight of ourselves and our neighbors in the springtime. There
are dozens of nests every summer in the ivy which clusters thickly
around my library windows; and we even carry our hospitality so far as
to erect small rows of model lodging-houses for our birds high up
under the eaves, which they inhabit in winter, and in which many
couples of sparrows and starlings rear their young throughout the
summer.

We will now leave the garden, and go into the house, which stands high
on a grassy platform facing the sunny west. We enter by a wooden
porch, which, as I write, is thickly covered with roses. As soon as
the f