THE SEARCH AND FINDING. 29 



" Gosh Smithers here p'raps you doan't know 

 Smithers no ; waal, he's got it, got it bad, that's so ; 

 and what's wus, his chil'en s'got it, and his wife s'had 

 it ; and my wife here, a spell ago, what does she do, 

 but up and takes it, s'bad s'enny on 'em ; 'ts a dum 

 curi's keind o' thing. You doan't know nothin' when 

 J ts oomin' ; and you doan't know no more when 'ts 

 goin' ; and arter 'ts dun, 'tain't no small shakes of a 

 thing ; a feller keeps keinder ailin'." 



Upon a sudden the place took on a new aspect 

 for me ; its cool shade seemed the murky parent of 

 miasma ; the wind sighed through the leaves with a 

 sickly sound, and the brook, that gave out a little 

 while before a roistering cheerfulness in its dash, 

 now surged along with only a quick succession of 

 sullen plashes. 



I must recur to one other disappointment in re- 

 spect of a country place, which possessed every one 

 of the features I had desired in unmistakable type ; 

 and yet all these so curiously distraught that they 

 possessed no harmony or charm. I ought perhaps to 

 except the sea view, which was wide to a fault, and 

 so near that on turbulent days of storm, it must have 

 created the illusion that you were fairly afloat. 



A sight of the sea, to temper a fair landscape, and 

 lend it ravishing reach to a far-off line of glistening 



