A JOURNAL KEPT IN THE COUNTRY. l8/ 



the canvas-board ; and Mrs. Lydia and myself were 

 very soon left alone at the tea-table. 



We see the three heads in colloquy among the 

 rose-beds; and once or twice I find my companion 

 smiling a little in a reflective way, busy, I think, 

 with forecasts of Romance. Whatsoever the vision, 

 it was broken in upon by Mrs. Latimer from Black- 

 hatch, a short dark woman of five and forty, moving 

 scented and rustling under a mound of black lace 

 and beads, viewing the world at short range through 

 none too kindly lorgnette. She has been my neigh- 

 bour for six months, planted for inscrutable reasons 

 in a bald new place on a lonely hill ; her personality 

 being, I should say, one of the differentiae of Earl's 

 Court. I find that self-denial of her pattern is not 

 uncommon among wealthy Londoners ; a country 

 house is a mortification that seems to be attached 

 to incomes of a certain figure. 



This afternoon Mrs. Latimer has been doing a 

 round of calls in her carriage. I take her through 

 the garden, with a mild apology to the owner of 

 three hundred feet of glass. She is delighted with 

 the humble scene. " Such a charming, old-fashioned 

 place ! Now, of course, at Blackhatch we had to 

 make all the garden out of fields. It is beginning 

 to grow up, though," she says ; " but will take some 



