?8 IDLEHURST : 



I recalled the rich world, friends, books, the garden ; 

 rebellious against vicarious unhappiness till I thought 

 of the Rector, whose perpetual burden I had been 

 fingering for an hour, and wondered if his consolations 

 were so lightly found ; thence slipping into wider 

 perspectives, which closed as I reached my door with 

 inconclusive speculation upon the receiving of one's 

 good things in one's lifetime, and some fixities con- 

 nected therewith. 



24^. Two or three sunny days and as many 

 warm nights have brought on the Spring past all 

 account. Within a week, as it seems, the pears on 

 walls or in the open quarters, widths and mounds of 

 white hawthorn-scented knops, have succeeded the 

 cloudy wreaths of plum and damson bloom as it 

 faded into the light green of the spreading leaves. 

 Oaks and elms are flushed over with a yellow haze ; 

 here and there in southerly corners is a tree half in 

 leaf. Spite of the exhilaration of this whole-hearted 

 advance, one feels half aggrieved, as though the 

 Spring had slipped in almost unawares and defrauded 

 us of part of the accustomed pageant of entry. 

 Swallows have been with us all this last week, trilling 

 and twittering in the great apple tree near the lawn, 

 making preliminary sweeps about last year's nests 

 at the eaves ; as though no winter among Barbary 



