In my present mood I was in search of the strenuous life, and eager to wait, rather than to be waited upon; so I walked along the edge of the Green, wishing that some mentally unbalanced householder would take a sudden fancy to me and ask me to come in and lodge awhile.  I suppose these families live under their roofs of peach-blow tiles, in the midst of their blooming gardens, for a guinea a week or thereabouts; yet if they “undertook” me (to use their own phrase), the bill for my humble meals and bed would be at least double that.  I don’t know that I blame them; one should have proper compensation for admitting a world-stained lodger into such an Eden.

When I was searching for rooms a week ago, I chanced upon a pretty cottage where the woman had sometimes let apartments.  She showed me the premises and asked me if I would mind taking my meals in her own dining-room, where I could be served privately at certain hours:  and, since she had but the one sitting-room, would I allow her to go on using it occasionally? also, if I had no special preference, would I take the second-sized bedroom and leave her in possession of the largest one, which permitted her to have the baby’s crib by her bedside?  She thought I should be quite as comfortable, and it was her opinion that in making arrangements with lodgers, it was a good plan not to “bryke up the ’ome any more than was necessary.”

“Bryke up the ’ome!” That is seemingly the malignant purpose with which I entered Barbury Green.

CHAPTER II

July 4th.

Enter the family of Thornycroft Farm, of which I am already a member in good and regular standing.

I introduce Mrs. Heaven first, for she is a self-saturated person who would never forgive the insult should she receive any lower place.

She welcomed me with the statement:  “We do not take lodgers here, nor boarders; no lodgers, nor boarders, but we do occasionally admit paying guests, those who look as if they would appreciate the quietude of the plyce and be willing as you might say to remunerate according.”

I did not mind at this particular juncture what I was called, so long as the epithet was comparatively unobjectionable, so I am a paying guest, therefore, and I expect to pay handsomely for the handsome appellation.  Mrs. Heaven is short and fat; she fills her dress as a pin-cushion fills its cover; she wears a cap and apron, and she is so full of platitudes that she would have burst had I not appeared as a providential outlet for them.  Her accent is not of the farm, but of the town, and smacks wholly of the marts of trade.  She is repetitious, too, as well as platitudinous.  “I ’ope if there’s anythink you require you will let us know, let us know,” she says several times each day; and whenever she enters my sitting-room she prefaces her conversation with the remark:  “I trust you are finding it quiet here, miss?  It’s the quietude