There is nothing to be compared, for comfort and beauty, to a dairy-farm. Arable lands are detestable; and the windows of the house generally look into a horrible yard, where the present agonies of the nose are made tolerable only by the hope of the rich crop to come. Here our windows looked upon a sloping green field, bounded from the road by a good thick hedge, at the distance of seventy or eighty yards. Beyond the road stretched fine luxuriant meadows, each bordered with its fence of noble elms, down to the river; so that we had nothing to do but cross the road, and wander among fields and hedgerows, miles and miles, either east or west--always within hearing of the gentle voice of the Usk, and often in sight of the long, still reaches of the river, that looked like beautiful lakes, fringed to the water side with willows and flowering shrubs. Seventeen or eighteen cows were our fellow-lodgers at the farm; and no sight is more fascinating, especially if you are fond of warm milk, than the long majestic march, and musical invocations, of the milky mothers, as they come home at evening from the pastures. Before three days were over, the names of all the cows were household words among the young ones; their very voices were distinguished; and it was decided that the flower of the flock, as to beauty, was Glo'ster, though some of us stoutly maintained that the whiteness of Handsome entitled her to the prize. Then there were about thirty sheep; but with them (in spite of frequent intercourse) we could only make out a general acquaintance--for we disbelieve altogether in the possibility of distinguishing one of the flock from the others. It must be the easiest thing in the world for a sheep to establish an _alibi_; and we are rather surprised that the impossibility of detection does not encourage some of the bolder of the woolly-sided heroes to some desperate outrage. There could be no identifying the culprit. But we saw no instance of spirit among them, except a wicked attempt on the part of a young lamb to overthrow authorities and powers; and we are sorry to say it was successful. Our friend the farmer discovered the presence of some insects in the wool, or rather in the body, of one of the yearlings. He proceeded, attended by us all, to extirpate this fatal enemy with his shears; and, having seized the sufferer, put its head between his knees, and proceeded to lay bare the hiding-place of the devouring grub. By some unlucky chance, the lamb got its head loose, pushed forward with two or three tremendous jumps, and the operator was thrown on his back, his feet in the air, and the shears held helplessly up in his discomfited hands. It created great consternation among the spectators; and the two younger children, after looking on in speechless amazement, thought, probably, that the assailant was a tiger in disguise, and sought safety ignominiously in flight. The patient--the lamb, we mean--was