were intended for something besides mere blowing.

It is the most difficult thing in the world to eat sandwiches with
immense fur and woollen gloves on, and I think we ate almost as much fur
as anything, and choked exceedingly during the process. Minora was angry
at this, and at last pulled off her glove, but quickly put it on again.

"How very unpleasant," she remarked after swallowing a large piece of
fur.

"It will wrap round your pipes, and keep them warm," said Irais.

"Pipes!" echoed Minora, greatly disgusted by such vulgarity.

"I'm afraid I can't help you," I said, as she continued to choke and
splutter; "we are all in the same case, and I don't know how to alter
it." "There are such things as forks, I suppose," snapped Minora.

"That's true," said I, crushed by the obviousness of the remedy; but
of what use are forks if they are fifteen miles off? So Minora had to
continue to eat her gloves.

By the time we had finished, the sun was already low behind the trees
and the clouds beginning to flush a faint pink. The old coachman was
given sandwiches and soup, and while he led the horses up and down
with one hand and held his lunch in the other, we packed up--or, to be
correct, I packed, and the others looked on and gave me valuable advice.

This coachman, Peter by name, is seventy years old, and was born on the
place, and has driven its occupants for fifty years, and I am nearly as
fond of him as I am of the sun-dial; indeed, I don't know what I should
do without him, so entirely does he appear to understand and approve of
my tastes and wishes. No drive is too long or difficult for the horses
if I want to take it, no place impossible to reach if I want to go to
it, no weather or roads too bad to prevent my going out if I wish to:
to all my suggestions he responds with the readiest cheerfulness, and
smoothes away all objections raised by the Man of Wrath, who rewards his
alacrity in doing my pleasure by speaking of him as an alter Esel. In
the summer, on fine evenings, I love to drive late and alone in the
scented forests, and when I have reached a dark part stop, and sit quite
still, listening to the nightingales repeating their little tune
over and over again after interludes of gurgling, or if there are no
nightingales, listening to the marvellous silence, and letting its
blessedness descend into my very soul. The nightingales in the forests
about here all sing the same tune, and in the same key of (E fl