led. Beside all this, we had the pleasure of gathering our
tomatoes from our own garden, and receiving our milk from our own
cow. Our manner of life was infinitely more to my taste than
before; it gave us all the privileges of rusticity, which are
fully as incompatible with a residence in a little town of
Western America as with a residence in London. We lived on terms
of primaeval intimacy with our cow, for if we lay down on our
lawn she did not scruple to take a sniff at the book we were
reading, but then she gave us her own sweet breath in return.
The verge of the cool-looking forest that rose opposite our
windows was so near, that we often used it as an extra drawing-
room, and there was no one to wonder if we went out with no other
preparation than our parasols, carrying books and work enough to
while away a long summer day in the shade; the meadow that
divided us from it was covered with a fine short grass, that
continued for a little way under the trees, making a beautiful
carpet, while sundry logs and stumps furnished our sofas and
tables. But even this was not enough to satisfy us when we first
escaped from the city, and we determined upon having a day's
enjoyment of the wildest forest scenery we could find. So we
packed up books, albums, pencils, and sandwiches, and, despite a
burning sun, dragged up a hill so steep that we sometimes fancied
we could rest ourselves against it by only leaning forward a
little. In panting and in groaning we reached the top, hoping to
be refreshed by the purest breath of heaven; but to have tasted
the breath of heaven we must have climbed yet farther, even to
the tops of the trees themselves, for we soon found that the air
beneath them stirred not, nor ever had stirred, as it seemed to
us, since first it settled there, so heavily did it weigh upon
our lungs.

Still we were determined to enjoy ourselves, and forward we went,
crunching knee deep through aboriginal leaves, hoping to reach
some spot less perfectly airtight than our landing-place.
Wearied with the fruitless search, we decided on reposing awhile
on the trunk of a fallen tree; being all considerably exhausted,
the idea of sitting down on this tempting log was conceived and
executed simultaneously by the whole party, and the whole party
sunk together through its treacherous surface into a mass of
rotten rubbish that had formed part of the pith and marrow of the
eternal forest a hundred years before.

We were b