84 
THE PERN PARADISE. 
with an inexpressible eagerness, for the trees and 
green lanes of the country. 
And if a journey anywhere to green fields and 
green trees be delightful, how intensely enjoyable 
it must be to speed away to the ferny lanes of 
Devonshire! Can those, we wonder, who have 
never visited that exquisitely beautiful county, 
have the smallest idea of the inexpressible love- 
liness of its green and ferny lanes ? 
How can we induce those who have never 
visited the c garden of England 5 to do so without 
delay? The attempt is, at least, worth a trial. 
We have in a previous chapter explained that 
during a summer visit we had roughly noted down 
our impressions of two charming green lanes in 
South Devon. Our notes were lightly jotted 
down and lightly thrown together. But we deter¬ 
mined to expand our Fern papers so that they 
mio’ht reach the dimensions of a volume. With 
o 
this object in view we needed to obtain fresh 
materials, and in order that these might be of the 
freshest kind, other visits to the delightful lanes 
of Devonshire would be necessary. We therefore 
decided that our plan of operations should be as 
