THE COUNTRY LIFE. 251 



beehives. Though the modern hives are at 

 once more economical and humane, they have 

 not the old associations that cling about the 

 straw domes topped with broken earthenware 

 to shoot off the heavy downfall of a thunder- 

 storm. 



" Everywhere the apple -bloom ; the hum of 

 bees ; children sitting on the green beside the 

 road, their laps full of flowers ; the song of 

 finches ; and the low murmur of water that 

 glides over flint and stone so shadowed by 

 plants and grasses that the sunbeams cannot 

 reach and glisten on it. Thus the straggling 

 flower-strewn village stretches along beneath 

 the hill and rises up the slope, and the 

 swallows wheel and twitter over the gables 

 where are their hereditary nesting-places. 

 The lane ends on a broad dusty road, and, 

 opposite, a quiet thatched house of the larger 

 sort stands, endways to the street, with an 

 open pitching before the windows. There, too, 

 the swallows' nests are crowded under the 

 eaves, flowers are trained against the wall, and 

 in the garden stand the same beautiful apple- 

 trees." 



