ountry in
early spring. Suppose I were never to go back to town again, but stay
with the Andersons, see them through the lambing season, lend a hand at
tossing the hay, swing a scythe at corn cutting (and probably cut off my
own legs into the bargain), drink a health at son Robert's wedding, and
then during the winter--yes, during the long dark winter evenings when
the wind raves round the old house and whistles down the chimneys, when
the boom of the sea echoes all along the coast as it breaks against the
cliffs--then to sit in the cosy sitting-room, with the curtains drawn
along the low windows, a famous fire flashing and glaring upon the
hearth, one's limbs pleasantly weary with the day's labour, one's cheeks
tingling from exposure to the keen air; would not this be an agreeable
exchange for the feverish anxieties and stagnant pleasures of London
life?

After a time, a considerable time no doubt, it would possibly occur to
Catherine to wonder what had become of me.

April 6.--Easter Sunday. I am writing in my sitting-room window. I raise
my eyes and see first the broad window-sill, whereon stand pots of musk
and geranium, not yet in flower; then through the clear latticed panes,
the bee-haunted garden, descending by tiny grassy terraces to the
kitchen-garden with its rows of peas and beans, its beds of lettuce and
potatoe, its neat patches of parsley and thyme; then a field beyond. I
note the double meandering hedge-line that indicates the high road, and
beyond again the ground rises in sun-bathed pastures and ploughed land
to the gorse-covered cliff edge with its background of pure sky; a
little to the right, yet still in full view from my window, is an abrupt
dip in the cliff, which shows a great wedge of glittering sea. It is
here that my eyes always ultimately rest, until they ache with the
dazzle and the beauty, and then by a natural transition I think
of--Catherine.

At this moment she is probably dressing to go to church, and is
absorbed in the contemplation of a new hat. I should think she had as
many hats on her head as hairs--no, I don't mean that; it suggests
visions of "ole clo'es"--I mean she must have almost as many hats as
hairs on her head.

How inexpressibly mean and petty this devotion to rags and tags and
gewgaws seems when one stands in the face of the Immensities and the
Eternities! Yet it would appear as though the feminine mind were really
incapable of impression by such Carlylean sublimit