“When will our train arrive at Cranley station?” asked my lady, after I had been going across, and along, and about, and over “Bradshaw” for an hour or two--I was so bothered, I could not tell which. “It was written as a penance for poor traveling sinners,” I answered in a whisper, for I did not want to _let on_ I couldn’t understand it: she did not hear me, and asked the question again. “I can read both running-hand and print, ma’am,” I said; “but none of my family had a turn for figures, and this looks mighty like what my brother got a prize for--they called it by the name of all-gib-raa.” My mistress sometimes looks very provoking--and that’s the truth--I can hardly think her the same at one time that she is at another. The little pert lady thrust her “Bradshaw” into her bag, and snapt the clasp--then turning round to the gentleman, she snapt him--“Do _you_ understand Bradshaw, sir?” “Noa,” he drawled out, “not exactly--I heard of a gentleman once who did, but im-me-diate-ly after he became insane!” I shut the book--oh aunt, I would not be _that_, you know, for all the books that ever were shut and opened. What should I do without my senses? Of all the ancient places you ever heard tell of, Cranley Hurst is the _quarest_ I ever saw. When you think you are at the far end of the building, it begins again--rooms upon rooms--shut up for ages--and passages leading to nothing, and nothing leading to passages--and a broad terrace looking over such a beautiful bog, and a pathway under the terrace to Cranley-marsh (that’s English for bog.) I often go that path, thinking of the waste lands of my own poor country. Oh, aunt, to see the great innocent frogs, the very _moral_[7] of the Irish ones, and lizards, turning and wriggling among the bullrushes; and between the floating islands of green, plashy weeds, that veil the deep pools, you see fish floating round the great gray stones, which, my mistress says, the Romans flung into Cranley-marsh to make a bridge. You should hear my mistress talk of it--she has such fine English. “Although it’s a flat,” she says, “I like it better than any mountain I ever saw. Such a combination of rich color--such orchis--such shades and masses of iris--such floats of rush-cotton--such banks of forget-me-nots--such ferns--and, in the spring, such piles of golden blossoming furze: the peat, so dark and intense, forms a rich contrast to the vegetation; and the ‘Roman stones,’ piled here and there into low pyramids, have a gray, solemn effect, and afford shelter to numerous migratory birds, who feed abundantly upon the insects that hover, like metallic vapors, over the deepest pools.” Them were her very words.