i68 
NATURE NOTES 
people, especially the children, looked very happy, having left 
the smoky atmosphere of the town to enjoy themselves in 
the famous hop-gardens of Kent, with this graceful climbing 
plant all round them, the sweet scent of which is both healthy 
and refreshing to these poor souls, accustomed only to endure 
much misery. The gardens looked very pretty, for the hops, 
which grew in clinging clusters up the poles and met overhead, 
formed little avenues which it is a pleasure to walk through. 
Leaving the hop-gardens, I passed through a green meadow and 
descended a little hill into the churchyard, w’here I rested for a 
moment under a yew tree. A solemn stillness seemed to creep 
over me as I gazed on the graves around me. Death is the one 
thing that sobers and levels old and young, rich and poor, alike. 
Everything reminded me that evening was fast approaching, and 
I thought of those lines — 
“ There is a calm, a sweetness and a power, 
That morning knows not, in the evening hour.” 
The air that had risen a little was laden with the scent of flowers. 
It is a curious fact that so many kinds of flowers give forth a 
sweeter scent towards evening. The sun was sinking in the 
western sky and the harvest moon had already risen when I got 
up from my seat. 
As I passed through the village I noticed many a wife 
standing at her cottage door, watching with eager eyes her 
husband’s return from his daily toil. School was over and 
a group of children were gathered round the forge, reminding 
me of Longfellow’s poem, “ The Village Blacksmith,” 
“ The children coming home from school. 
Look in at the open door.” 
I met a few labourers returning to their simple fare and comfort- 
able firesides, for the evening hour is especially sweet to those 
who, by their own industry, feel they have earned a few hours' 
repose. I hastened my steps as I crossed a field, which led to 
our house, and thought I had rarely spent such a pleasant and 
interesting day, and I wondered, as I entered the hall, if the 
other members of the household had been equally well amused. 
Many were the exclamations which greeted me as I came into 
the room where the family was assembled, but none of them 
seemed so well satisfied with the way they had spent their day 
as was I, myself. 
