Phoebe confided to me that she was on the eve of loving the postman when the carrier came across her horizon.

“It doesn’t do to be too hysty, does it, miss?” she asked me as we were weeding the onion bed.  “I was to give the postman his answer on the Monday night, and it was on the Monday morning that Mr. Gladwish made his first trip here as carrier.  I may say I never wyvered from that moment, and no more did he.  When I think how near I came to promising the postman it gives me a turn.” (I can understand that, for I once met the man I nearly promised years before to marry, and we both experienced such a sense of relief at being free instead of bound that we came near falling in love for sheer joy.)

The last and most important member of the household is the Square Baby.  His name is Albert Edward, and he is really five years old and no baby at all; but his appearance on this planet was in the nature of a complete surprise to all parties concerned, and he is spoiled accordingly.  He has a square head and jaw, square shoulders, square hands and feet.  He is red and white and solid and stolid and slow-witted, as the young of his class commonly are, and will make a bulwark of the nation in course of time, I should think; for England has to produce a few thousand such square babies every year for use in the colonies and in the standing army.  Albert Edward has already a military gait, and when he has acquired a habit of obedience at all comparable with his power of command, he will be able to take up the white man’s burden with distinguished success.  Meantime I can never look at him without marvelling how the English climate can transmute bacon and eggs, tea and the solid household loaf into such radiant roses and lilies as bloom upon his cheeks and lips.

CHAPTER III

July 8th.

Thornycroft is by way of being a small poultry farm.

In reaching it from Barbury Green, you take the first left-hand road, go till you drop, and there you are.

It reminds me of my “grandmother’s farm at Older.”  Did you know the song when you were a child?—­

   My grandmother had a very fine farm
   ’Way down in the fields of Older. 
   With a cluck-cluck here,
   And a cluck-cluck there,
   Here and there a cluck-cluck,
   Cluck-cluck here and there,
   Down in the fields at Older.

It goes on for ever by the simple subterfuge of changing a few words in each verse.

   My grandmother had a very fine farm
   ’Way down in the fields of Older. 
   With a quack-quack here,
   And a quack-quack there,
   Here and there a quack-quack,
   Quack-quack here and there,
   Down in the fields at Older.

This is followed by the gobble-gobble, moo-moo, baa-baa, etc., as long as the laureate’s imagination and the infant’s breath hold good.  The tune is pretty, and I do not know, or did not, when I was young, a more fascinating lyric.