A JOURNAL KEPT IN THE COUNTRY. 2$I 



Happy he whose dreams of conquered worlds 

 come true, at forty-five or so, in a garden plot, 

 some roods of subject earth under a sky that is 

 only peace. 



2$th. The Rectory garden, long suffering under 

 the Rector's theories of horticulture, and Alice and 

 her friends' practice of romps, is saved from entire 

 desolation by Mrs. Lydia's repairs, and by the loan 

 of Bish for a day, which I make from time to time 

 in the summer, as a reinforcement to the Rectory 

 factotum's somewhat ineffectual labours. Mrs. Lydia 

 finds time to spare from her house, and the Clubs, 

 and the District, to make the annual pink pipings 

 and geranium cuttings, and to trim and weed in the 

 long summer evenings. For Bish, whom the Fates 

 in youth by his parents kept from Sunday School 

 for fear he should learn bad language, and the rest 

 of whose life in the green solitude of Dogkennel and 

 my quiet parterre has been after that beginning 

 for Bish those days down in the village are land- 

 marks. I think he knows a fearful joy to feel in 

 the secure covert of the Rectory walks the stress of 

 Arnington life surge about him ; to hear the trades- 

 men's carts, the bell for morning service, the stir of 

 feet and voices, to see the postman three several 



