88 S U B U R B A N y E I G n B O Ji H O O D S . 



large family may feel this less than a small one. Those who have 

 the means, the health, and the disposition to entertain much com- 

 pany at home, will escape the feeling of loneliness. But much 

 company brings much care. It is paying a high price for company 

 when one must keep a free hotel to secure it. To do without it, 

 however, soon suggests to the ladies that fewer acres, and more 

 friends near by, would be a desirable .change ; and not knowing the 

 facility with which the happy medium may be reached, they are apt 

 to jump at the conclusion that, of the two privations— life in the 

 country without neighborly society, or life in the city without the 

 charms of Nature— the latter is the least. Thousands of beautiful 

 homes are ever)- year offered for sale, on which the owners have 

 often crippled their fortunes by covering too much ground with 

 their expenditures. Instead of retiring to the country for rest and 

 strengthening recreation, they have added a full assortment of 

 losing and vexatious employments in the country to their already 

 wearisome but profitable business in the city. It is the ambition 

 to have " parks " (young Chatsworths !)— to be model farmers and 

 famous gardeners ; to be pomologists, with all the fruits of the 

 nursery catalogues on their lists : in short, to add to the burden of 

 their town business the cares of half a dozen other laborious pro- 

 fessions, that finally sickens so many of their country places after a 

 few years' experience with them. There is another large class of 

 prosperous city men who have spent their early years on farms, 

 and who cherish a deep love of the country through all their de- 

 cennial rounds of city life ; who have no fanciful ambitions for 

 parks ; whose dreams are of hospitable halls, broad pastures, and 

 sweet meadows, fine cattle and horses. It is a less vexatious mesh 

 of ambitions than the preceding, but one that requires a very 

 thoughtful examination of the resources of the purse and the calls 

 that will be made upon it, before purchasing the model farm that 

 is to be. And we beg leave to intrude a little into the privacy of 

 the family circle, to inquire how long will the wife and daughters 

 be contented with isolation on ever so beautiful a farm ; how long 

 before the boys will leave home for business or homes of their 

 own; and how long, if these are dissatisfied, or absent, will the 

 " fine mansion " and broad fields, in a lonely locality, bring peace 



