hands!" My comforters cannot bring me to repine much on this
subject. If I could be allowed to look back on the past without
interruption, I could willingly give up the enjoyment of present
income and the hope of future profit to those who have purchased
what my father sold. I regret the alteration of the ground only
because it destroys associations, and I would more willingly (I
think) see the Earl's Closes in the hands of strangers, retaining
their silvan appearance, than know them for my own, if torn up by
agriculture, or covered with buildings. Mine are the sensations
of poor Logan:--

"The horrid plough has rased the green
Where yet a child I strayed;
The axe has fell'd the hawthorn screen,
The schoolboy's summer shade."

I hope, however, the threatened devastation will not be
consummated in my day. Although the adventurous spirit of times
short while since passed gave rise to the undertaking, I have
been encouraged to think that the subsequent changes have so far
damped the spirit of speculation that the rest of the woodland
footpath leading to Aunt Margaret's retreat will be left
undisturbed for her time and mine. I am interested in this, for
every step of the way, after I have passed through the green
already mentioned, has for me something of early remembrance:--
There is the stile at which I can recollect a cross child's-maid
upbraiding me with my infirmity as she lifted me coarsely and
carelessly over the flinty steps, which my brothers traversed
with shout and bound. I remember the suppressed bitterness of
the moment, and, conscious of my own inferiority, the feeling of