A JOURNAL KEPT IN THE COUNTRY. 8/ 



" Elia's ' Alice W n,' " I put in, " and Alice Lee, 



Alice Bridgenorth, ' Old Alice ' in Lammermoor." 



" Alice Lorraine, and 'Sweet Alice with hair so 

 brown/ " concludes Gervase ; " and they all have a 

 distinct sort of English sweetness, a sort of honesty 

 and goodness and healthy affection in them all. Of 

 course there are plenty of very nice Kates and Kitties ; 

 but then one can't forget Catherine of the Medici and 

 the Russian person, and they weren't what Alice 

 would call really jolly people." 



We had come in our perambulations to a corner 

 where a company of "snakeshead" fritillaries hung 

 their checkered bells. I think not many Oxford 

 men worth their battels could see them without 

 recalling Iffley and Kennington meadows in the 

 best of the year, the best of the years, perhaps. 

 In my time, quite unlikely sorts of men used to 

 pick bunches of the flowers, when the levels of 

 grass burned like green fire, and the river flashed 

 dazzlingly at the bend beyond. We would come up 

 the tow-path with our spoils ; they may do it still 

 and find it pleasant, when the boat goes well, and 

 the Schools are still afar, and people are coming up 

 for the Eights. Gervase goes back into the thick of 

 it all to-morrow; to see the golden fields and the 

 twinkling stream ; to rip his blade through along the 



