d corn
fritters. Mrs. Trowbridge beamed all over when I said I should like to
live on them for a month. To drink we had tumblers of iced tea, and
there was raspberry vinegar, too, which we were supposed to swallow
with our dinner; and afterwards there was hot apple pie, with custard
and slabs of cheese to eat at the same time.

We were obliged to eat a good deal of everything, otherwise Mrs.
Trowbridge would have felt hurt, and I felt sleepy when we had
finished, but I refused to go and lie down to rest, as they wanted me
to, it seemed such a waste of time. At last Mr. Trowbridge offered to
show "Cousin Jim" round the farm, and maybe I looked wistful, for when
they found that I was determined not to take a nap, they asked if I
would go with them.

Mr. Trowbridge had on a linen coat now, a long, yellow one, which I
should laugh at if I saw it on the stage in a play, but it suited him,
and he looked quite impressive in it. He fanned himself with a large
straw hat, without any ribbon, and talked splendidly to us, as we three
walked together under the trees.

If any English person should write a novel, and make a farmer in it
talk like Mr. Trowbridge, everyone who read the book would say he was
impossible. His way of speaking was a little slipshod, sometimes
(though not a bit more than ours when we drop our "g's" and things like
that, only more guileless sounding); but without seeming a bit as if he
wanted to show off what he knew--which is so boring--he quoted
Shakespeare, and Wordsworth, and Tennyson; and in mentioning his work
at the hives in the morning, asked if we had read Maeterlinck's "Life of
the Bee." From that he fell to discussing other things of Maeterlinck's
with Mr. Brett, and incidentally talked of Ibsen. There wasn't the
least affectation about it all. The quotations and allusions he made
were mixed up incidentally with conversation about the beauty of the
country, and life on a farm. He was interested in the subjects, and
took it for granted that we were, so he chatted about things he cared
for, modestly and happily.

By and by he left us alone for a few minutes, while he went to speak to
a man who works on the farm. He was going to show us the maple sugar
camp when he came back, and we sat on a felled oak and waited, with a
smell of clover coming to us on the warm breeze, and the "tinkle,
tankle" of cow-bells in the distance.

"What an extraordinary man!" I said to Mr. Brett.

"You mean because he