2O6 IDLEHURST : 



and incantation of children's eager babble, one is 

 conjured back somewhere near, at least, to the magic 

 country of old, and it becomes a thing possible that 

 there were years when the gilded cars, the roaring 

 steam orchestras, the painted terrors of the forest, 

 were glory and loveliness, a morning's Paradise and 

 dreams for a week. 



When we tore ourselves away, we all went to lunch 

 at the Rectory ; and most of the afternoon the elders 

 sat by the garden-door steps, watching by glimpses 

 and fits the noble game of " I-spy " as played by 

 Alice and Bob, General Aske's boy Peter, Kitty 

 Culpeper, and others of their fellowship. As the 

 shrill tumult flashed about the garden (a careless 

 wilderness given up to romps like these, and perhaps 

 the better for it than my serene groves), one per- 

 ceived through hedge-gaps and orchard vistas that 

 Alice and Bob she quick-footed and lithe beyond 

 the other girls, learned in every burrow and short cut 

 in the ground ; the boy a head above the rest, bold 

 to dash through quickset or jump the cabbage rows 

 were always together on the heights of chance, 

 hunter or huntress, captured or derided from the 

 hard-won "home." 



Then all at once they changed the game to 

 " French and English ; " and for a few moments Alice, 



