fearless confidence of that fine, frank-hearted creature! And
surely he loved us. I wonder the practice is not more general.
'May! May! naughty May!' She has frightened away the kingfisher;
and now, in her coaxing penitence, she is covering me with snow.
'Come, pretty May! it is time to go home.'

Thaw.

January 28th.--We have had rain, and snow, and frost, and rain again
four days of absolute confinement. Now it is a thaw and a flood;
but our light gravelly soil, and country boots, and country
hardihood, will carry us through. What a dripping, comfortless day
it is! just like the last days of November: no sun, no sky, gray or
blue; one low, overhanging, dark, dismal cloud, like London smoke;
Mayflower is out coursing too, and Lizzy gone to school. Never
mind. Up the hill again! Walk we must. Oh what a watery world to
look back upon! Thames, Kennet, Loddon--all overflowed; our famous
town, inland once, turned into a sort of Venice; C. park converted
into an island; and the long range of meadows from B. to W. one huge
unnatural lake, with trees growing out of it. Oh what a watery
world!--I will look at it no longer. I will walk on. The road is
alive again. Noise is reborn. Waggons creak, horses splash, carts
rattle, and pattens paddle through the dirt with more than their
usual clink. The common has its old fine tints of green and brown,
and its old variety of inhabitants, horses, cows, sheep, pigs, and
donkeys. The ponds are unfrozen, except where some melancholy piece
of melting ice floats sullenly on the water; and cackling geese and
gabbling ducks have replaced the lieutenant and Jack Rapley. The
avenue is chill and dark, the hedges are dripping, the lanes
knee-deep, and all nature is in a state of 'dissolution and thaw.'