nds." For what very small assistance the poor are often
deeply, permanently thankful! Well says the great poet--

"I've heard of hearts unkind, good deeds
With ill deeds still returning;
Alas, the gratitude of man
Hath oftener left me mourning!"
Wordsworth.

Again for above a year we lost sight of our little favourites, for such
they were with both of us; though absence, indisposition, business,
company--engagements, in short, of many sorts--combined to keep us from
the Moss for upwards of a twelvemonth. Early in the succeeding April,
however, it happened that, discussing with some morning visiters the
course of a beautiful winding brook, (one of the tributaries to the
Loddon, which bright and brimming river has nearly as many sources as
the Nile,) one of them observed that the well-head was in Lanton Wood,
and that it was a bit of scenery more like the burns of the North
Countrie (my visiter was a Northumbrian) than anything he had seen in
the south. Surely I had seen it? I was half ashamed to confess that I
had not--(how often are we obliged to confess that we have not seen the
beauties which lie close to our doors, too near for observation!)--and
the next day proving fine, I determined to repair my omission.

It was a soft and balmy April morning, just at that point of the flowery
spring when violets and primroses are lingering under the northern
hedgerows, and cowslips and orchises peeping out upon the sunny banks.
My driver was the clever, shrewd, arch boy Dick; and the first part of
our way lay along the green winding lanes which lead to Everley; we then
turned to the left, and putting up our phaeton at a small farmhouse,
where my attendant (who found acquaintances everywhere) was intimate, we
proceeded to the wood; Dick accompanying me, carrying my flower-basket,
opening the gates, and taking care of my dog Dash, a very beautiful
thorough-bred Old English spaniel, who was a little apt, when he got
into a wood, to run after the game, and forget to come out again.

I have seldom seen anything in woodland scenery more picturesque and
attractive than the old coppice of Lanton, on that soft and balmy April
morning. The underwood was nearly cut, and bundles of long split poles
for hooping barrels were piled together against the tall oak trees,
bursting with their sap; whilst piles of faggots were built up in other
parts of the copse, and one or two saw-pits, with light open sheds