CHAPTER V. 



THE OPEN FIELDS. 



ONE of the sights upon which my eyes restoften- 

 est and with deepest content is a broad sweep of 

 meadow slowly climbing the western sky until it 

 pauses at the edge of a noble piece of woodland. 

 It is a playground of wind and flowers and waving 

 grasses. There are, indeed, days when it lies cold 

 and sad under inhospitable skies, but for the most 

 part the heavens are in league with cloud and sun to 

 protect its charm against all comers. When the 

 turf is fresh, all the promise of summer is in its 

 tender green ; a little later, and it is sown thick 

 with daisies and buttercups ; and as the breeze 

 plays upon it these frolicsome flowers, which have 

 known no human tending, seem to chase each other 

 in endless races over the whole expanse. I have 

 seen them run breathlessly up the long slope, 

 and then suddenly turn and rush pell-mell down 

 again. If the wind had only stopped for a moment 

 its endless gossip with the leaves, I am sure I 

 should have heard the gleeful shouts, the sportive 

 cries, of these vagrant flowers whose spell is rewoven 

 over every generation of children, and whose un- 

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