th.--We have had rain, and snow, and frost, and rain again
four days of absolute confinement. Now it is a thaw and a flood; but
our light gravelly soil, and country boots, and country hardihood, will
carry us through. What a dripping, comfortless day it is! just like
the last days of November: no sun, no sky, gray or blue; one low,
overhanging, dark, dismal cloud, like London smoke; Mayflower is out
coursing too, and Lizzy gone to school. Never mind. Up the hill again!
Walk we must. Oh what a watery world to look back upon! Thames, Kennet,
Loddon--all overflowed; our famous town, inland once, turned into a
sort of Venice; C. park converted into an island; and the long range of
meadows from B. to W. one huge unnatural lake, with trees growing out
of it. Oh what a watery world!--I will look at it no longer. I will
walk on. The road is alive again. Noise is reborn. Waggons creak, horses
splash, carts rattle, and pattens paddle through the dirt with more than
their usual clink. The common has its old fine tints of green and brown,
and its old variety of inhabitants, horses, cows, sheep, pigs, and
donkeys. The ponds are unfrozen, except where some melancholy piece
of melting ice floats sullenly on the water; and cackling geese and
gabbling ducks have replaced the lieutenant and Jack Rapley. The avenue
is chill and dark, the hedges are dripping, the lanes knee-deep, and all
nature is in a state of 'dissolution and thaw.'

THE FIRST PRIMROSE.

March 6th.--Fine March weather: boisterous, blustering, much wind and
squalls of rain; and yet the sky, where the clouds are swept away,
deliciously blue, with snatches of sunshine, bright, and clear, and
healthful, and the roads, in spite of the slight glittering showers,
crisply dry. Altogether the day is tempting, very tempting. It will not
do for the dear common, that windmill of a walk; but the close sheltered
lanes at the bottom of the hill, which keep out just enough of the
stormy air, and let in all the sun, will be delightful. Past our old
house, and round by the winding lanes, and the workhouse, and across the
lea, and so into the turnpike-road again,--that is our route for to-day.
Forth we set, Mayflower and I, rejoicing in the sunshine, and still
more in the wind, which gives such an intense feeling of existence,
and, co-operating with brisk motion, sets our blood and our spirits in a
glow. For mere physical pleasure, there is nothing perhaps equal to the
enjoyment of