164 By Stream and Sea. 



make next spring and summer, or tending with jealous 

 watchfulness the store fruit which lends such a powerful but 

 mellow fragrance to the apple room. We might have 

 smoked a cigar in the greenhouse, as I do every day, mark- 

 ing the daily condition of the slips and cuttings. There 

 are the celery beds, too, and the kitchen garden generally, 

 which must be looked after summer and winter alike. We 

 might even have gone out with the gun, and brought down 

 a rare bird, though that expedition would have answered 

 better in the later winter. My neighbour's farm, out-houses, 

 deeply-littered yard, folds and pig-styes included, I should 

 have entered in my catalogue of aids to winter life at 

 Hazelbarn, and there is certain literary work in the lower 

 drawer of this table that will justify and repay the patient 

 toil of many a winter evening yet to come. Pruning' and 

 planting, with respect to the trees and shrubs, must also pass 

 with a mention. Here, again, one is conscious of the 

 penalty — for of course there are some drawbacks — of the 

 leisurely gossiping habits which Hazelbarn promotes. 



Do I then, after all, conclude with a regret, and conse-, 

 quent justification of that concern which my long-standing 

 town friends affect or feel? Most assuredly not. Let me 

 protest — but, there is the horn again with a much nearer 

 blast ; yet hurrah for winter at Hazelbarn ! 



