at only gave zest to the expedition. She had also
eluded Dolly's invitation to luncheon. Walking straight up from the
station, she crossed the village green and entered the long chestnut
avenue that connects it with the church. The church itself stood in the
village once. But it there attracted so many worshippers that the
devil, in a pet, snatched it from its foundations, and poised it on
an inconvenient knoll, three quarters of a mile away. If this story is
true, the chestnut avenue must have been planted by the angels. No more
tempting approach could be imagined for the lukewarm Christian, and if
he still finds the walk too long, the devil is defeated all the same,
Science having built Holy Trinity, a Chapel of Ease, near the Charles's
and roofed it with tin.

Up the avenue Margaret strolled slowly, stopping to watch the sky that
gleamed through the upper branches of the chestnuts, or to finger the
little horseshoes on the lower branches. Why has not England a great
mythology? our folklore has never advanced beyond daintiness, and the
greater melodies about our country-side have all issued through the
pipes of Greece. Deep and true as the native imagination can be, it
seems to have failed here. It has stopped with the witches and the
fairies. It cannot vivify one fraction of a summer field, or give names
to half a dozen stars. England still waits for the supreme moment of her
literature--for the great poet who shall voice her, or, better still for
the thousand little poets whose voices shall pass into our common talk.

At the church the scenery changed. The chestnut avenue opened into
a road, smooth but narrow, which led into the untouched country. She
followed it for over a mile. Its little hesitations pleased her. Having
no urgent destiny, it strolled downhill or up as it wished, taking
no trouble about the gradients, or about the view, which nevertheless
expanded. The great estates that throttle the south of Hertfordshire
were less obtrusive here, and the appearance of the land was neither
aristocratic nor suburban. To define it was difficult, but Margaret knew
what it was not: it was not snobbish. Though its contours were slight,
there was a touch of freedom in their sweep to which Surrey will never
attain, and the distant brow of the Chilterns towered like a mountain.
"Left to itself," was Margaret's opinion, "this county would vote
Liberal." The comradeship, not passionate, that is our highest gift as
a nation