Pearson's Xane 



borhood, but then such a sod ! It has been undis- 

 turbed for two centuries, bear in mind, and is as 

 soft and thick as the pile of good velvet. Nowhere 

 else have I found such grass upon which to walk, 

 or, preferably, to loiter. 



As a rule, there is little to attract one when 

 passing along an ordinary country road. There 

 may be violets about our path, but these are com- 

 monplace ; or buttercups in the fields, but these 

 are everywhere; later, the thistle may be in bloom, 

 with dainty goldfinches swinging from the stems, 

 but many times before have we seen all this; there 

 may be asters and goldenrod, joepye-weed and 

 boneset, even pink centaury and dodder, and we 

 will pass them by as a tiresome repetition of other 

 days. Though unwise and illogical, our one 

 thought is for novelty, for something to take us 

 out of the line of common travel, away from the 

 worn path of the prosaic millions who look neither 

 to the right nor to the left, and think loitering a 

 sin. Their example is no evidence that there is 

 nothing to see even in the most commonplace of 

 crowded thoroughfares. Then as children we were 

 ever charged not to loiter, until the word became 

 thoroughly hated, as detested as the practice was 

 lovely ; and it remains lovely, even in greater de- 

 gree, as the rambler grows older. So when, weary 

 of the commonplace, which is not to your credit, 

 you chance to come to an old gate that has been 

 swinging in all weathers until it is as fixed a feature 

 183 



