WENLOCK ABBEY IN 1778. From an Engraving after a Drawing by Paul Sandby, R.A. Frontispiece....

It was a dark, dismal day. Thick black clouds hung across the sky. There was a faint chirping of sparrows amongst the lifeless creepers, and that was all. A roaring fire burnt in my grate; before which my dog, a great tawny creature of the boarhound breed, lay sleeping at her ease. It was cold, very cold; in all nature there seemed no life. A white, thick covering rested upon the ground. Snow had fallen heavily the last week of the old year, and much, I feared, must fall again, judging by the ye

Some weeks had passed, and I had been away from home. Rain had fallen, and the snow had vanished like a dream—the first dawn of spring had come. Not spring as we know her in the South of France or in Southern Italy—gorgeous, gay, debonair—but shy, coy, and timid. The spring of the North is like a maiden of the hills, timid and reserved, yet infinitely attractive, what our French friends would call “une sensitive.” There was, as yet, very little appearance that winter “brear Winter,” as Spenser c

The winds of heaven were blowing, blowing; dust was flying on the roads. The old saying that “a peck is worth a king’s ransom” returned to my mind. February fill-dyke had filled the springs and the streams, and now March with his gay sun, and wild winds was drying them as hard as he could. How pleasant it was to see the sun again! He had been almost a stranger in the cold dark months of the young year. Yet early as it was, Phœbus was proud and glorious and at his fiery darts all nature seemed to

A soft sweet day. A gentle rain had fallen all through the night, and the sense of spring was everywhere. Soft mellow sunshine flooded into the house. How the chestnut buds glistened in the sunlight, all damp, and sticky, and a few even had begun to uncurl. The almonds were out in sheets of rosy pink blossom. Bees were humming everywhere, and thrushes were piping their jubilant strains on every gnarled apple tree. I asked at breakfast for my little maid, but I was told that she was not yet down,

All the morning Bess had been beside herself, jumping up and down, and running round in gusts of wild excitement. At noon the fête was really to take place, and at that hour Constance and her band were to come down by a back way through the town. The piano had already been moved on the bowling green, between the yew hedges. In the distance I had watched Burbidge superintending, and I am sure grumbling freely by the ominous shakes of his head. Our old servant had been in a great state of alarm ab

Yes, the golden pomp had come. The earth was radiant. Down below the Abbey extended sheets of golden buttercups, the world was full of song, and a clear turquoise sky, cloudless and glorious, rose above us, and all through the joyous days we were bathed in glad sunshine. Peace had come, inside and outside the house. The storms that ended May had vanished, and my domestic coach seemed rolling gaily along. Bess had grown good again, the roughest children sometimes do. The lessons were learnt witho

I wandered round the garden some ten days later. It was July, the Queen of Summer in the North. I heard the swish of the mowers’ scythes, as wave after wave of blossoming grass fell beneath their feet. As I looked, I noticed that the trees had taken a darker, fuller shade of green, and that the apple and emerald tints which delighted me so much in budding June, had fled before the fierce days of full summer heat. Although the lawns were still verdant, and such as you could only see where the sum