II. THE EVENTS OF A FORTNIGHT

1. THE NINTH OF JULY

The day of their departure was one of the most glowing that the
climax of a long series of summer heats could evolve. The wide
expanse of landscape quivered up and down like the flame of a taper,
as they steamed along through the midst of it. Placid flocks of
sheep reclining under trees a little way off appeared of a pale blue
colour. Clover fields were livid with the brightness of the sun
upon their deep red flowers. All waggons and carts were moved to
the shade by their careful owners, rain-water butts fell to pieces;
well-buckets were lowered inside the covers of the well-hole, to
preserve them from the fate of the butts, and generally, water
seemed scarcer in the country than the beer and cider of the
peasantry who toiled or idled there.

To see persons looking with children's eyes at any ordinary scenery,
is a proof that they possess the charming faculty of drawing new
sensations from an old experience--a healthy sign, rare in these
feverish days--the mark of an imperishable brightness of nature.

Both brother and sister could do this; Cytherea more noticeably.
They watched the undulating corn-lands, monotonous to all their
companions; the stony and clayey prospect succeeding those, with its
angular and abrupt hills. Boggy moors came next, now withered and
dry--the spots upon which pools usually spread their waters showing
themselves as circles of smooth bare soil, over-run by a net-work of