, this winter, on business--won't that be fine? If only you
would go too."

I shook my head. I had the strongest disinclination to stir from my
quiet home, which now held within it, or about it, all I wished for and
all I loved. It seemed as if any change must be to something worse.

"Nevertheless, you must have a change. Doctor Jessop insists upon it.
Here have I been beating up and down the country for a week
past--'Adventures in Search of a Country Residence'--and, do you know,
I think I've found one at last. Shouldn't you like to hear about it?"

I assented, to please him.

"Such a nice, nice place, on the slope of Enderley Hill. A
cottage--Rose Cottage--for it's all in a bush of cluster-roses, up to
the very roof."

"Where is Enderley?"

"Did you never hear of Enderley Flat, the highest tableland in England?
Such a fresh, free, breezy spot--how the wind sweeps over it! I can
feel it in my face still."

And even the description was refreshing, this heavy, sultry day, with
not a breath of air moving across the level valley.

"Shouldn't you like to live on a hill-side, to be at the top of
everything, overlooking everything? Well, that's Enderley: the
village lies just under the brow of the Flat."

"Is there a village?"

"A dozen cottages or so, at each door of which half-a-dozen white
little heads and a dozen round eyes appeared staring at me. But oh,
the blessed quiet and solitude of the place! No fights in filthy
alleys! no tan-yards--I mean"--he added, correcting himself--"it's a
thorough country spot; and I like the country better than the town."

"Do you, still? Would you really like to take to the 'shepherd's life
and state,' upon which my namesake here is so eloquent? Let us see
what he says."

And from the handful of books that usually lay strewn about wherever we
two sat, I took up one he had lately got, with no small pains I was
sure, and had had bound in its own proper colour, and presented it to
me--"The Purple Island," and "Sicelides," of Phineas Fletcher. People
seldom read this wise, tender, and sweet-voiced old fellow now; so I
will even copy the verses I found for John to read.

"Here is the place. Thyrsis is just ending his 'broken lay.'

'Lest that the stealing night his later song might stay--'"

"Stop a minute," interrupted John. "Apropos of 'stealing night,' the
sun is already down below the yew-hedge. Are you cold?"

"Not a bit of it."

"Then we'll begi