THE HOME OF A NATURALIST. $ 



chiefly spent among grown-up people, would ofttimes 

 slip his wee hand into that of the Naturalist, whose 

 mind was never so absent that it could not be recalled 

 by that touch. Then what talks they would have, to 

 be sure ! Not unfrequently an elfish girl, with thin 

 pale face and restless gait, would add herself to the 

 group, startling the more refined creatures by her 

 abrupt motions, startling her father yet more by her 

 metaphysical ideas upon every subject that ever stirred 

 the thought of a mere human being. 



On fine summer days, the Naturalist would often 

 effect a disappearance by simply stretching himself at 

 full length in a field of grass — tall rye-grass, where 

 the corncrake delighted to nest, and over which the 

 skylark loved to pour his melody. Very different the 

 harsh cry of the one to the song of the other ; yet the 

 Naturalist loved the voices of both, and would spend 

 hours in their haunts. One might almost have believed 

 that he slept, so motionless he lay ; but the girl afore- 

 mentioned would at times invade his solitude, and she 

 always found him gazing straight into the sky, or 

 watching the movements of some insect creeping 

 among the surrounding grasses. If happily he were 

 "i' the vein," he would tell her what strange cloud- 

 worlds he saw, and how they were peopled by the 

 creatures of his imagination ; and then his fancy would 

 carry her beyond cloudland into the Unseen — almost, 

 she thought, into the presence of the Creator; for 

 Nature's God, he said, was best seen and known 

 through His works. An insect losing its way, and 



