July - Page 2

a fortnight we go to morning prayer at eleven and sit up in a sort
of private box with a room behind, whither we can retire unobserved when
the sermon is too long or our flesh too weak, and hear ourselves being
prayed for by the blackrobed parson. In winter the church is bitterly cold;
it is not heated, and we sit muffled up in more furs than ever we wear out
of doors ; but it would of course be very wicked for the parson to wear furs,
however cold he may be, so he puts on a great many extra coats under
his gown, and, as the winter progresses, swells to a prodigious size.
We know when spring is coming by the reduction in his figure.
The congregation sit at ease while the parson does the praying
for them, and while they are droning the long-drawn-out chorales,
he retires into a little wooden box just big enough to hold him.
He does not come out until he thinks we have sung enough, nor do we stop
until his appearance gives us the signal. I have often thought how dreadful
it would be if he fell ill in his box and left us to go on singing.
I am sure we should never dare to stop, unauthorised by the Church.
I asked him once what he did in there; he looked very shocked at such
a profane question, and made an evasive reply.

If it were not for the garden, a German Sunday would be a
terrible day; but in the garden on that day there is a sigh of relief
and more profound peace, nobody raking or sweeping or fidgeting;
only the little flowers themselves and the whispering trees.

I have been much afflicted again lately by visitors--
not stray callers to be got rid of after a due administration
of tea and things you are sorry afterwards that you said,
but people staying in the house and not to be got rid of at all.
All June was lost to me in this way, and it was from first
to last a radiant month of heat and beauty; but a garden
where you meet the people you saw at breakfast, and will see
again at lunch and dinner, is not a place to be happy in.
Besides, they had a knack of finding out my favourite seats and lounging in them just when I longed
to lounge myself;
and they took books out of the library with them, and left them face
downwards on the seats all night to get well drenched with dew,
though they might have known that what is meat for roses is
poison for books; and they gave me to understand that if they
had had the arranging of the garden it would have been finished
long ago--whereas I don't believe a garden ever is finished.
They have all gone now, thank heaven, except one, so that I
have a little breathing space before others begin to arrive.
It seems that the place interests people, and that there
is a sort of novelty in staying in such a deserted corner of
the world, for they were in a