went up the
meadow to the horse-chestnut trees that he himself had planted, and
there, in peace and quietness and soft cool shadow, waded about in the
dew, without any one to grumble at him.

How crookedly things are managed in this world!

It is the modern fashion to laugh at the East, and despise the Turks and
all their ways, making Grand Viziers of barbers, and setting waiters in
high places, with the utmost contempt for anything reasonable--all so
incongruous and chance-ruled. In truth, all things in our very midst go
on in the Turkish manner; crooked men are set in straight places, and
straight people in crooked places, just the same as if we had all been
dropped promiscuously out of a bag and shook down together on the earth
to work out our lives, quite irrespective of our abilities and natures.
Such an utter jumble!

Here was Iden, with his great brain and wonderful power of observation,
who ought to have been a famous traveller in unexplored Africa or
Thibet, bringing home rarities and wonders; or, with his singular
capacity for construction, a leading engineer, boring Mont Cenis Tunnels
and making Panama Canals; or, with his Baconian intellect, forming a new
school of philosophy--here was Iden, tending cows, and sitting, as the
old story goes, undecidedly on a stile--sitting astride--eternally
sitting, and unable to make up his mind to get off on one side or the
other.

Here was Mrs. Iden, who had had a beautiful shape and expressive eyes,
full in her youth of life and fire, who ought to have led the gayest
life in London and Paris alternately, riding in a carriage, and flinging
money about in the most extravagant, joyous, and good-natured
manner--here was Mrs. Iden making butter in a dull farmhouse, and
wearing shoes out at the toes.

So our lives go on, rumble-jumble, like a carrier's cart over ruts and
stones, thumping anyhow instead of running smoothly on new-mown sward
like a cricket-ball.

It all happens in the Turkish manner.

Another time there would come a letter from one of the Flammas in
London. Could they spare a little bag of lavender?--they grew such
lovely sweet lavender at Coombe Oaks. Then you might see Mr. and Mrs.
Iden cooing and billing, soft as turtle-doves, and fraternising in the
garden over the lavender hedge. Here was another side, you see, to the
story.

Mrs. Iden was very fond of lavender, the scent, and the plant in every
form. She kept little bags of it in all her drawers