Afoot in England

now lies between Reading and Basingstoke and includes Aldermaston with its

a home feeling as strong as that which I experience in certain places among the South Wiltshire downs and in the absolutely fl

did leave it we found that Reading would not leave us. It was like a stupendous octopus in red brick which threw out red tentacles, miles and miles long in various directions-little rows and single and double cottages and villas, all in red, red brick and its weary accompaniment, the everlasting hard slate roof. These square red brick boxes with sloping slate tops are built as close as po

y happy with her flowers and work for thirty years of her life, in its present degraded state. It has a sign now and calls itself the "Mitford Arms" and a "Temperance Hotel," and we were told that you could get tea and bread a

al square miles of country, but just where the church stands it is shady and pleasant. The pretty church yard too is very deeply shaded and occupies a small hill with the Loddon flowing partly round it, then taking its swift way through the village. Miss M

looking person, a little vulgar perhaps. I fancy the artists were bunglers. I possess a copy of a very small pencil sketch made of her face by a dear old lady friend of mine, now dead, about the year 1851 or 2. My friend had a gift for portraiture in a peculiar way. When she saw a face that greatly interested her, in a drawing-room, on a platform, in the street, anywhere, it remained very vividly in her m

he couldn't abide and wouldn't have alliteration's artful aid in his periodical. Let us leave the subject of what Miss Mitford was to those of her day who knew her; a thousand lovely personalities pass away every year and in a little while are no more remembered than th

rite. It was in a sense poor because it was mostly ambitious stuff, and, as the proverb says, "You cannot fly like an eagle with the wings of a wren." She was driven to fly, and gave her little wings too much to do, and her flights were apt to be mere little weak flutterings over the surface of the ground. A wren, and she had not a cuckoo but a devouring cormorant to sustain-that dear,

stuff she wrote to k

rtalize herself, has

of us-do not forget an

Her letters remain-the

like balls of silvery

far and wide over the l

rm in them; they are so

humour and vivacity, he

nd one book too remains

amlet, in which she liv

elf and her parents, th

oduce work and hard up

humble one lying at her

even as in her most in

ity of Our Tillage; it

erself, her tender hum

ul humorous spirit. Ther

a classic! It is about

hat it might have been

re's sights and sounds

hose of a score or perh

of such subjects. The

and her invention so po

own making one regrets

eces like a dandelion b

es of in a way better b

ful personality manifes

es. This short passage

age child she loved, to

serve as an

feelings (and who

) will understand why A

nd why even needlewor

oother and composer of

will go out into the

that will do.... I wil

will have my materials

flowers, and we will m

all, Lizzie?" "No." "Com

Liz

, fast! down the r

g by the great pond, til

es seem to meet over th

at the end. "Through t

he cows; they are quie

boldly and' truly, and

g thought to mind anyth

e design of proving her

, in the shape of a pul

don't, Lizzie; but le

Come to me, my dear!"

a

d driven about a huge unwieldy sow, till the animal's grunting had disturbed t

e chain then follows, and other pretty scenes and adventures, until afte

touch, and smell! Lizzie was enchanted, and ran off with her prize, hiding amongst the trees in the v

ure in everything makes everything interesting, and in displaying her feeling without art or disguise she succeeds in giving what we may call a literary expression to personal charm-that quality which is almost untranslatable into written words. Many women possess

when I have wanted to waste half an hour pleasantly with a book I have found myself picking up "Our Village" from among many others, some waiting

house we were informed that the landlord or his wife was just dead, or dangerously ill, I forget which, and they could take no one in. Accordingly, we had to trudge back to Three Mile Cross and the old ramshackle, well-nigh ruinous inn there. It was a wretched place, smelling of mo

e were glad to sit down for a week there, to loiter about the furzy waste, or prowl in the forest and haunt the old walls; but it was pleasant even indoors with that wide prospect before the window, the wooded country stretching many miles away to the hills of Kingsclere, blue in the distance and crowned with t

s was between them and their world of blue heavens and woods and meadow flowers; then I thought that after the service I would make an attempt to get them out; but soon reflected that to release them it would be necessary to capture them first, and that that could not be done without a ladder and butterfly net. Among the women (ladies) on either side of and before me there were no fewer than five wearing aigrettes of egret and bird-of-paradise plumes in their hats or bonnets, and these five all remained to take part in that ceremony of eat

d holly trees, to think that in another two thousand years there will be no archaeologist and no soul in Silchester, or anywhere else in Britain, or in the world, who