ver for a moment anticipated
any change in the conditions. For some weeks past we had had
alternations of frost and snow and thaw, and for several days the bare,
brown earth had been frozen hard, and the roadway was furrowed as a
field, with ice filling every rut and wrinkle.

It was an ideal day for a sharp walk, provided one's organs were sound
and one's limbs supple, and though a thousand needles pricked my cheeks
and hands, and my ears smarted with the pinching they got, my whole
body was soon aglow and I revelled in the encounter.

I took the downward road which winds slowly round to Marsland, and
tried to discover the heralds of spring. On such a day everybody
should be an optimist. I think I generally am as regards myself,
whatever the weather may be like, but I must admit that so far I have
had little cause for being anything else. It is only when I begin to
dwell on the miseries of other people, and the wrongs which it seems
impossible to put right, that the black mood settles upon me.

But on this particular day I felt on good terms with the world, and
thought of the sunny days which lay ahead, and of the coming morning,
when the heather bells would feel the warm breath of summer upon their
face, and open their eyes in loving response to her kiss.

And here and there in the shelter of the hedges, and by the banks of
the ice-bound stream where the bridge crosses it I found the heralds I
sought--tiny shoots of green pushing their way through the hard soil or
the warm coverlet of faded leaves. By and by the icy fingers will have
to relax their grasp, and the woods and hedgerows will be gay with the
little fairy creatures, who dress so daintily in colours of a hundred
hues for our enjoyment, and who smile, perhaps, to think what a limited
monarchy King Frost maintains after all.

I am well known by now, and every farmer's boy who passes me exchanges
greetings, sometimes with a half-hearted movement of the hand in the
direction of the cap, but oftener with the smile of recognition which
betokens comradeship. For our relations are on the most cordial
footing of strict equality; we are all workmen, each after his kind,
servants of one Master; and if God gives us grace to use our
opportunities as we ought we may all enter, even now, into the joy of
the Lord. There is a vast difference, as I have learned, between
servility and respectfulness, and I believe I am as much respected as
the squire, though with l