y fit,
and had a way of flying out on the lawn suddenly, startling my dear dog
Nettle out of his first sleep.

Ah, well! that may be an absurd bit of one's life to look back upon, but
its days were bright and innocent enough. Health was so perfect that the
mere sensation of being alive became happiness, and all the noise of the
eager, bustling, pushing world, seemed shut away by those steep hills
which folded our quiet valley in their green arms. People have often
said to me since, "Surely you would not like to have lived there for
ever?" Perhaps not. I can only say that three years of that calm,
idyllic life, held no weary hour for me, and I am quite sure that quiet
time was a great blessing to me in many ways. First of all, in health,
for a person must be in a very bad way indeed for New Zealand air not to
do them a world of good; next, in teaching me, amid a great deal of fun
and laughter, sundry useful accomplishments, not easily learned in our
luxurious civilization; and, lastly, those few years of seclusion from
the turmoil of life brought leisure to think out one's own thoughts, and
to sift them from other peoples' ideas. Under such circumstances, it is
hard if "the unregarded river of our life," as Matthew Arnold so finely
call it be not perceived, for one then

"---- Becomes aware of his life's flow
And bears its winding murmur, and he sees
The meadows where it glides, the sun, the breeze;
And there arrives a lull in the hot race,
Wherein he doth for ever chase
That flying and elusive shadow, rest."

One good effect of my sufferings with a house full of unruly volunteers,
was that during the brief stay (only two months), of my next cook, I
set to work assiduously to learn as many kitchen mysteries as she could
teach me, and so became independent of Captain George or F----, or any
other amateur, good, bad, or indifferent.

Nothing could be more extraordinary than the way in which the two
affectionate sisters, mentioned [earlier] and who succeeded Euphemia and
Lois, quarrelled. They were very unlike each other in appearance, and
one fruitful source of bickering arose from their respective styles of
beauty. Not only did they wrangle and rave at each other all the day
long, during every moment of their spare time, but after they had gone
to bed, we could hear them quite plainly calling out to each other from
their different rooms. If I begged them to