house of the Lord.

Sun and bell together are my only clock: it is time for my water
drawing; and gathering a pile of mushrooms, children of the night,
I hasten home.

The cottage is dear to me in its quaint untidiness and want of
rectitude, dear because we are to be its last denizens, last of the
long line of toilers who have sweated and sown that others might
reap, and have passed away leaving no trace.

I once saw a tall cross in a seaboard churchyard, inscribed, "To
the memory of the unknown dead who have perished in these waters."
There might be one in every village sleeping-place to the
unhonoured many who made fruitful the land with sweat and tears.
It is a consolation to think that when we look back on this stretch
of life's road from beyond the first milestone, which, it is
instructive to remember, is always a grave, we may hope to see the
work of this world with open eyes, and to judge of it with a due
sense of proportion.

A bee with laden honey-bag hummed and buzzed in the hedge as I got
ready for work, importuning the flowers for that which he could not
carry, and finally giving up the attempt in despair fell asleep on
a buttercup, the best place for his weary little velvet body. In
five minutes--they may have been five hours to him--he awoke a new
bee, sensible and clear-sighted, and flew blithely away to the hive
with his sufficiency--an example this weary world would be wise to
follow.