156 By Stream and Sea. 



a taste for amusement and knowledge, we have these new- 

 comers almost every day in the week, quite apart from the 

 daily newspapers. The great days, however, are Wednesday 

 and Thursday, when we receive those mid-weekly peep- 

 holes into the world and its secret doings which make 

 everybody so wise ; Saturday, when the pictorial papers and 

 most of the weeklies arrive ; and Sunday, which is sacred 

 to that welcome journal which no man living in the country 

 can do without. 



There is a Mede and Persian law as to this newspaper 

 which no one at Hazelbarn dares disregard. On Sunday 

 morning when I descend (at half-past eight in the winter 

 with great punctuality) into the apartment which the ladies 

 will call " the study," that record of sports, pastimes, and 

 rural pursuits must be in its place on the little long-legged 

 reading-desk, sewn by certain nimble fingers, and carefully 

 cut with a gigantic paper-knife kept for the purpose, 



This dear friend in type (typical friend, perhaps ?) is a 

 godsend in the winter, because you have not only the 

 enormous bulk of the current number to digest and make 

 notes upon, but all the long articles from back numbers 

 which have been carefully put by, like the good wife's 

 preserves, for winter use. Why, at this moment I have 

 enough of miscellaneous travels in that publication to last 

 me till the second week in January ; and there are natural 

 history and angling papers in addition that will keep me 

 going till Shrovetide. Even at Hazelbarn one must be 

 methodical, and my method is to read the Field every 

 Sunday morning during breakfast, and thence till church- 

 time ; also before and sometimes after dinner. 



In the summer, when one gets out of doors as much as 

 possible, the advertisements, which are always singularly 

 interesting, albeit they do sometimes tempt you to break 



