274 OUT-OF-TOWN PLACES. 



real homishness of a country place. I know there 

 are very good and Christian people who never allow 

 a dog about their premises, or a duck, or a dove, or 

 a stray dandelion upon their lawn, and who buy 

 statuary and rustic iron work (always in pairs) for 

 their grounds, and who keep the front blinds closed, 

 and who manage to give to their sunniest porch the 

 look of a church door upon week-days ; but why 

 such people should come into the country or live in 

 the country I could never understand. It puzzles me 

 prodigiously. 



I like hugely that good old English word home- 

 liness. It ought to have again its first meaning. 

 Pretty-faced women have corrupted it. It describes 

 all that is best about a country house. I have ad- 

 vocated the use of homely material and of homely 

 methods, believing these are best fitted, judiciously 

 used, to lend real homeliness to a house in the 

 country. 



Mr. TTrbarfs Purchase. 



MR. URBAN has at last positively succeeded in 

 making purchase of his farm of fifty acres, or 

 thereabout. It has its undulations, its scattered woods, 

 its obtruding cliff in short, a sufliciently varied sur- 

 face to admit of a certain picturesque treatment, 



