104 SOBAPSQUA 



dwellers, but no more, perhaps, than our barbarous 

 modes would spoil it for these dainty folk, I can 

 imagine how their sensibilities would be shocked at 

 the sight of our uncouth living, our lairs of boughs 

 and blankets, our unnapered table, with the frying- 

 pan serving for platter and common plate, no less 

 than our sense of the fitness of things is hurt by 

 this flaunting of fashion in the face of Nature. 



They wonder at our ways, we at theirs, being 

 unable to understand what they can find in all 

 that they enjoy to compensate for what we ha'Ve 

 lost — the freedom from care and conventionalities 

 that were ours in these wild corners, when the 

 click of the croquet ball, the incongruous jingle of 

 pianos, and the babble of human voices did not 

 overbear the whispers of the wind in the trees, the 

 songs of birds and the soft laps of waves on quiet 

 shores. 



