emanly race;) "a cupped dahlia, of the genuine metropolitan
shape; large as the Criterion, regular as the Springfield Rival, perfect
as Dodd's Mary, with a long bloom stalk like those good old flowers,
the Countess of Liverpool and the Widnall's Perfection. And such a free
blower, and so true! I am quite sure that there is not so good a dahlia
this year. I prefer it to 'Corinne,' over and over." And Mr. Sutton
assented and condoled, and I was as near to being comforted as anybody
could be, who had lost such a flower as the Phoebus.

After so many vain researches, most persons would have abandoned
the pursuit in despair. But despair is not in my nature. I have a
comfortable share of the quality which the possessor is wont to call
perseverance--whilst the uncivil world is apt to designate it by the
name of obstinacy--and do not easily give in. Then the chase, however
fruitless, led, like other chases, into beautiful scenery, and formed an
excuse for my visiting or revisiting many of the prettiest places in the
county.

Two of the most remarkable spots in the neighbourhood are, as it
happens, famous for their collections of dahlias--Strathfield-saye, the
seat of the Duke of Wellington, and the ruins of Reading Abbey.

Nothing can well be prettier than the drive to Strathfield-saye,
passing, as we do, through a great part of Heckfield Heath,* a tract
of wild woodland, a forest, or rather a chase, full of fine sylvan
beauty--thickets of fern and holly, and hawthorn and birch, surmounted
by oaks and beeches, and interspersed with lawny glades and deep
pools, letting light into the picture. Nothing can be prettier than the
approach to the duke's lodge. And the entrance to the demesne, through a
deep dell dark with magnificent firs, from which we emerge into a finely
wooded park of the richest verdure, is also striking and impressive.
But the distinctive feature of the place (for the mansion, merely a
comfortable and convenient nobleman's house, hardly responds to the fame
of its owner) is the grand avenue of noble elms, three quarters of a
mile long, which leads to the front door.

* It may be interesting to the lovers of literature to hear
that my accomplished friend Mrs. Trollope was "raised," as
her friends the Americans would say, upon this spot. Her
father, the Rev. William Milton, himself a very clever man,
and an able mechanician and engineer, held the living of
Heckfield for many years