,
though he is now smoking very happily under a rock with Martyn.

JULY 7.--Such a delightful evening walk with Metelill and Isa as
Emily and I had last night, going to evensong in our despised
church! The others said they could stand no more walking and heat,
and yet we met Martyn and Mary out upon the rocks when we were
coming home, after being, I must confess, nearly fried to death by
the gas and bad air. They laughed at us and our exertions, all in
the way of good humour, but it was not wholesome from parents. Mary
tried to make me confess that we were coming home in a self-
complacent fakir state of triumph in our headaches, much inferior to
her humble revelling in cool sea, sky, and moonlight. It was like
the difference between the BENEDICITE and the TE DEUM, I could not
help thinking; while Emily said a few words to Martyn as to how
mamma would be disappointed at his absenting himself from Church,
and was answered, "Ah! Emily, you are still the good home child of
the primitive era," which she did not understand; but I faced about
and asked if it were not what we all should be. He answered rather
sadly, "If we could'; and his wife shrugged her shoulders. Alas! I
fear the nineteenth century tone has penetrated them, and do not
wonder that this poor Isabel does not seem happy in her home.

9.--What a delightful sight is a large family of young things
together! The party is complete, for the Druces arrived yesterday
evening in full force, torn from their bucolic life, as Martyn tells
them. My poor dear old Margaret! She does indeed look worn and
aged, dragged by cares like a colonist's wife, and her husband is
quite bald, and as spare as a hermit. It is hard to believe him
younger than Martyn; but then his whole soul is set on Bourne Parva,
and hers on him, on the children, on the work, and on making both
ends meet; and they toil five times more severely in one month than
the professor and his lady in a year, besides having just twice as
many children, all of whom are here except the schoolboys. Margaret
declares that the entire rest, and the talking to something not
entirely rural, will wind her husband up for the year; and it is
good to see her sitting in a basket-chair by my mother, knitting
indeed, but they both do that like breathing, while they purr away
to one another in a state of perfect repose and felicity. Meantime
her husband talks Oxford with Martyn and Mary. Their daughter Jane
seems to