s in the midst of acacias, mulberries, and nettles
have no passion for nature. It is only to the summer visitor that
God has vouchsafed an eye for the beauties of nature. The rest of
mankind remain steeped in profound ignorance of the existence of
such beauties. People never prize what they have always had in
abundance. "What we have, we do not treasure," and what's more we
do not even love it.

The little house stands in an earthly paradise of green trees with
happy birds nesting in them. But inside . . . alas . . . ! In summer,
it is close and stifling within; in winter, hot as a Turkish bath,
not one breath of air, and the dreariness! . . .

The first time I visited the little house was many years ago on
business. I brought a message from the Colonel who was the owner
of the house to his wife and daughter. That first visit I remember
very distinctly. It would be impossible, indeed, to forget it.

Imagine a limp little woman of forty, gazing at you with alarm and
astonishment while you walk from the passage into the parlour. You
are a stranger, a visitor, "a young man"; that's enough to reduce
her to a state of terror and bewilderment. Though you have no dagger,
axe, or revolver in your hand, and though you smile affably, you
are met with alarm.

"Whom have I the honour and pleasure of addressing?" the little
lady asks in a trembling voice.

I introduced myself and explained why I had come. The alarm and
amazement were at once succeeded by a shrill, joyful "Ach!" and she
turned her eyes upwards to the ceiling. This "Ach!" was caught up
like an echo and repeated from the hall to the parlour, from the
parlour to the kitchen, and so on down to the cellar. Soon the whole
house was resounding with "Ach!" in various voices.

Five minutes later I was sitting on a big, soft, warm lounge in the
drawing-room listening to the "Ach!" echoing all down the street.
There was a smell of moth powder, and of goatskin shoes, a pair of
which lay on a chair beside me wrapped in a handkerchief. In the
windows were geraniums, and muslin curtains, and on the curtains
were torpid flies. On the wall hung the portrait of some bishop,
painted in oils, with the glass broken at one corner, and next to
the bishop a row of ancestors with lemon-coloured faces of a gipsy
type. On the table lay a thimble, a reel of cotton, and a half-knitted
stocking, and paper patterns and a black blouse, tacked together,
were lying on the floor. In the next r