A Green Thought in a Green Shade

— Every one has some name which is an El Dorado to his imagination, some name which in an undefinable way suggests romance and vague loveliness. For me “ Surrey ” has always possessed this stimulating quality, so I readily yielded when Constance and Winifred asked me to go down to their cottage in the enchanted county of my “ inward eye.” It is a cottage, not so old as the hills, but about as old as cottages ever are, set on the edge of a peaceful, unvisited, green common where ducks and geese patter and cackle by day, untroubled with any thought of steam or progress. At night they sleep, head under wing, on the surface of a pond, and the harvest moon comes up red and round through the spreading branches of an old walnut. By night the picture is rimmed with silver ; by day it assumes the delicate greens and blues which make rural England like a water-color contrasted to the oil-painting depth and richness of southern Italy ; but whether by day or by night, the place is equally still and secluded. Dunsfold’s charm is too quiet and subtle to draw the many who throng to the more fashionable parts of Surrey, and Lyefold Cottage is lapped in peace. May it long be so ! The sloping, mossy roof, with its brokenbacked declivity peculiar to ancient cottages, has the brooding expression of a motherly old hen. The irregular casements, with their small leaded panes and rusty iron hasps, are a reproof to “ endless imitation,” and each day as I wake to soft English sunshine and gaze up at the snowy walls, crisscrossed by dark, oaken beams, a nameless flood of restfulness sweeps over me, a something of the time when repose was not a luxury of the few. Downstairs in the quaint kitchen is a fireplace of colossal proportions, with cosy cupboard-crannies for tobacco and whiskey hoards, and a niched seat where the story-teller may sit and weave endless yarns. The fire-dogs dated 1599 tell us we are not a thing of yesterday, and the heavy old leather - seated Cromwell chairs give a sense of sturdy dignity not to be put into words. A tall clock strikes the hours from one corner, and a big brass warming-pan, scoured until it shines like Luna herself, beams from an opposite wall. It is an unwritten law that nothing modern shall intrude upon this nook of old world still-life. Only my stiff-necked blouse and sailor hat bring a wrong note where my gentle hostesses wear womanly, old-fashioned gowns of blue print, full and free, adapted to the concocting of chicken pie and gooseberry fool. When they sit down to supper I slip out among the nasturtiums and currant bushes to peep through the chintz-curtained casement, until my American joy in our picturesque antiquity moves them to sympathetic laughter. Each day lazy, fat Thomas, the pony, draws us through the steep, shady Surrey lanes, or we linger in sweet dalliance along the old mill-race, gathering bulrushes and leaves of russet and green to fill the jars at the cottage.

But we are here only for a season ; the true owners of Lyefold cottage are other guests. It is a place of sojourn and rest for poor ladies who need a holiday. Constance and Winnie are always looking out for weary governesses and tired wage-earners to whom this green spot may bring refreshment. They loan the cottage to four tir five ladies at a time, people often unknown to their hostesses, who live in London. If the guests can afford to, they pay the housekeeping expenses ; if they cannot, everything is provided for them, and these two sisterly hearts contrive finds of extra jams and potted meats and dainty discoveries of conserves for their unseen guests.

English people are not so shy as we have become of the beautiful old Saxon word of “ lady; ” to them it represents a reality; and my friends have made this title the only qualification for those who would enjoy their charity, — a charity not buckramed with the pharisaic patronage often conveyed by the word, but instinct with the spirit which exhales from the New Version of the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians.