A ramble round these scenes, whilst a most enjoyable matter to any one born to an appreciation of the country, was in truth not the inspiration that would be imagined to the writer of the text, for he had seen, for instance, the daintily conceived water-colour of "Ox-eye Daisies" (Plate 38), painted a year ago, and he arrived at the field to find this year's crop a failure, and on a day in which the distant woods were hardly visible; the scene of the "Foxgloves" had all the underwood grown up, and only a stray spike suggestive of the glory of past years; gipsy tramps on the road to "berrying" (strawberry gathering) conjured up no visions of the tenant of Mrs. Allingham's "Spring on the Kentish Downs," but only a horrible thought of the strawberries defiled by being picked by their hands. This description of the variety of the artist's work within a single small area will show that it is somewhat difficult to classify it for consideration. However, one or two arrangements and rearrangements of the drawings which illustrate these phases of the artist's output seem to bring them best into the following divisions: woods, lanes, and fields; cottages; and gardens. These we shall therefore consider in this and the following chapters, dealing here with the first of them. Midway in her life at Witley, The Fine Art Society induced Mrs. Allingham to undertake, as the subject for an Exhibition, the portrayal of the countryside under its four seasonal aspects of spring, summer, autumn, and winter. She completed her task, and the result was shown in 1886 in an Exhibition, but a glance at the catalogue shows in which direction her preference lay; for whilst spring and summer between them accounted for more than fifty pictures, only seven answered for autumn, and six, of which one half were interiors, illustrated winter. These proportions may not perhaps have represented the ratio of her affections, but of her physical ability to portray each of the seasons. Autumn leaves and tints no doubt appealed to her artistic eye as much as spring or summer hues, but for some reason, perhaps that of health, illustrations were few and far between of the time of year When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. In so selecting she differed from Mr. Ruskin, who has laid it down that "a tree is never meant to be drawn with all its leaves on, any more than a day when its sun is at noon. One draws the day in its morning or eventide, the tree in its spring or autumn dress." This naturally exaggerated dictum is the contrary of Mrs. Allingham's practice. She almost invariably waits for the trees until they have completely donned their spring garb, and leaves them ere they doff their summer dress.