respect one's taste in choosing so homely and serene a region for a
dwelling-place, and they know that whatever motive one may have
had for coming, it was not dictated by a feverish love of society.
I have never known a district--and I have lived in many parts of
England--where one was so naturally and simply accepted as a part
of the place. One is greeted in all directions with a comfortable
cordiality, and a natural sort of good-breeding; and thus the life
comes at once to have a precise quality, a character of its own.
Every one is independent, and one is expected to be independent
too. There is no suspicion of a stranger; it is merely recognised
that he is in search of a definite sort of life, and he is made
frankly and unostentatiously at home.

And so the days race away there in the middle of the mighty plain.
No plans are ever interrupted, no one questions one's going and
coming as one will, no one troubles his head about one's
occupations or pursuits. Any help or advice that one needs is
courteously and readily given, and no favours asked or expected in
return. One little incident gave me considerable amusement. There
is a private footpath of my own which leads close to my house;
owing to the house having stood for some time unoccupied, people
had tended to use it as a short cut. The kindly farmer obviated
this by putting up a little notice-board, to indicate that the
path was private. A day or two afterwards it was removed and thrown
into a ditch. I was perturbed as well as surprised by this,
supposing that it showed that the notice had offended some local
susceptibility; and being very anxious to begin my tenure on
neighbourly terms, I consulted my genial landlord, who laughed, and
said that there was no one who would think of doing such a thing;
and to reassure me he added that one of his men had seen the