othing but a green, rolling plain, with a sharp edge
against the sunset. I love those west windows better than any others,
and have chosen my bedroom on that side of the house so that even times
of hair-brushing may not be entirely lost, and the young woman who
attends to such matters has been taught to fulfil her duties about a
mistress recumbent in an easychair before an open window, and not to
profane with chatter that sweet and solemn time. This girl is grieved
at my habit of living almost in the garden, and all her ideas as to the
sort of life a respectable German lady should lead have got into a sad
muddle since she came to me. The people round about are persuaded that I
am, to put it as kindly as possible, exceedingly eccentric, for the news
has travelled that I spend the day out of doors with a book, and that no
mortal eye has ever yet seen me sew or cook. But why cook when you can
get some one to cook for you? And as for sewing, the maids will hem the
sheets better and quicker than I could, and all forms of needlework of
the fancy order are inventions of the evil one for keeping the foolish
from applying their heart to wisdom.

We had been married five years before it struck us that we might as well
make use of this place by coming down and living in it. Those five years
were spent in a flat in a town, and during their whole interminable
length I was perfectly miserable and perfectly healthy, which disposes
of the ugly notion that has at times disturbed me that my happiness here
is less due to the garden than to a good digestion. And while we were
wasting our lives there, here was this dear place with dandelions up
to the very door, all the paths grass-grown and completely effaced, in
winter so lonely, with nobody but the north wind taking the least notice
of it, and in May--in all those five lovely Mays--no one to look at
the wonderful bird-cherries and still more wonderful masses of lilacs,
everything glowing and blowing, the virginia creeper madder every year,
until at last, in October, the very roof was wreathed with blood-red
tresses, the owls and the squirrels and all the blessed little birds
reigning supreme, and not a living creature ever entering the empty
house except the snakes, which got into the habit during those silent
years of wriggling up the south wall into the rooms on that side
whenever the old housekeeper opened the windows. All that was
here,--peace, and happiness, and a reasonable life,--a