THE 



DAILY LIFE OF OUE FAEI. 



Odoher, 1865. 



At last the blessed rain ! cleansing the foul sewers, 

 giving drink to the grass roots, washing mildew from 

 the swedes, reinspiring the croquet lawn, bringing home 

 the w^ells and refilling the old village ladies' tarred- 

 barrel reservoirs, delighting the young mudlarks — to be 

 led off in screaming terror an hour hence by exasperated 

 maternity — but, above all, dispelling the dread malaria 

 of typhus and cholera. 



On the still pool of the river-bend, there beyond 

 the willow, how the glad pellets dance, lightening and 

 darkening in alternate sport ! It is even as Byron 

 wrote — 



" How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea, 

 And the big rain comes dancing to the earth" — 



He wrote, however, of his loved lake Leman, little 



dreaming that his lines would ever be borrowed by a 



farmer to point the expression of a bucolic i 



* * * ^ ^ 



It is but a short three weeks since the above was 

 written and left. Already how the wind howls around 

 quite winterly, and the lovely October tints are being 

 beaten away, and the general prevalence of colds and 



