Page:Letters from Abroad to Kindred at Home (Volume 1).djvu/18

Rh beautiful—but what we call the English elm, with its upright, stiff stem. As we straggled on down a green lane, we saw a notice "To let furnished" on the gate of a very attractive-looking cottage; so, being seized with a happy inspiration (a natural one, you may think it, for pushing Yankees), we determined, as applicants for the tenement, to see the inside of an English cottage; so, going up a narrow paved walk, we rung for admittance. I asked a pretty, neatly-dressed woman who appeared to show me the premises, and kept my countenance in spite of my tittering followers, while we were shown through a dining-room, drawing-room, two kitchens, and five bedrooms, all small, and furnished with extreme neatness and comfort. All this, with a very pretty little garden, we might have, without linen or plate, for four guineas a week. There was a lovely little court, too, in front, filled with shrubs and flowers; not a thimbleful of earth that did not do its duty. No wonder the woman took us at our word, for I am sure we looked as if we would fain set up our rest there.

I afterward followed R. into the garden, and encountered the deaf husband of our neat matron-guide. He showed me a filbert grafted upon an apple-tree by a bird having deposited a seed there. I asked, "Had the filbert borne fruit?" "Four guineas a week, ma'am," he answered, "and it's counted a very 'ealthy hair!" We felt it was quite time to retreat.

When we came borne we found that Captain