CHESTNUTS BY THE WAY 



terously good-natured and rudely gallant. I 

 retain a vivid picture in my memory of a broad- 

 hipped, red-faced, bare-armed Gretchen with an 

 enormous loaf of home-made bread against her 

 breast, as she drew a big knife through it, and 

 cut off a slice as big and as thick as a sirloin 

 steak, and handed it on the point of the knife to 

 a handsome fellow, who immediately poured the 

 molasses over it and fell to devouring it with a 

 carnivorous zest that was softened and, I might 

 say, enamelled by his smile and his white teeth. 

 So intent was I on these happy rustics, and so 

 easily did they fit themselves into the oxygen 

 and translucence of the morning, without taking 

 any heed, that they grew in my fancy perilously 

 near to being the fauns and satyrs that the sun 

 and my vagrant fantasy had evoked, and the half 

 hour went by without my knowing it. 



When we set out on our journey, we really 

 walked out of a reality that had been warmed by 

 the morning into an illusion. The air was what 

 Shakspere called &quot; nipping and eager,&quot; but we 

 enjoyed it as one does the grip of a strong hand 

 or the prickle of the surf. We were both unusu 

 ally springy in step and full-lunged, and the Doctor 

 assured me that it was not alone the oxygen, but 

 the disencumberment. I dare say he was right. 

 I remember that morning now because the world 

 suddenly appeared to be deeper, calmer, and less 

 dependent on anything I could do in it, which I 

 understood later, thanks to the Doctor, was a 

 symptom of health. Some of the things the 



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