‘Ah!’ He crowded a perfectly bewildering variety of emotions into the breathed monosyllable. ‘Is that a nightingale singing over there?’ ‘No; you are too late for nightingales: they have done singing these two months and more. That is a robin. The robins have just begun to sing again after their summer silence; and when that happens, you know the summer is almost done.’ He sat now mute at my side for so long, that at last I must steal a glance at him. I saw him brush a hand hastily across his eyes. ‘I—I am glad I came, of course,’ said he, musing, ‘but—but I have been the worst kind of fool all the same. Just think of going back there to-night! Lor’! just think of it! Yesterday morning I watered the geraniums in the window-boxes, and gave the canary his seed; and, says I, “Here’s singing-birds and flowers, as good as any you’ll get in the country!” Then I went to the shop door, and saw a cart full of straw going by, and another of green cabbages for Boro’ Market. “Lor’!” I says, “the country comes on wheels to your very door in London! London for me!” And now I’ll never get that feeling back again, no, never! The very worst kind of fool, I _don’t_ think!’ Close by us there grew a great tuft of valerian. As he sat staring tragically at its disc of deep red blossom, butterflies came to it with every moment, sipped awhile, then passed on. Painted ladies, red admirals, little tortoiseshells always in twos or threes; finally a peacock butterfly sailed over to the valerian and settled there, her rich colours aflare in the sunshine. She spread out her great vanes, the upper covering the lower. Then she gently slid her upper wings forward, and gradually the wonderful spots on the lower wings appeared, like a pair of slowly opening, drowsy, violet eyes. The little tobacconist breathed hard. ‘I can see it all clear enough,’ he said tremulously. ‘A man gets a real chance here. Come worry, come sickness, come bad luck, come anything you like—all you have got to do is to open your eyes and ears, and off it goes like the bundle of sins in the _Pilgrim’s Progress_ book. But in London—’ He stopped short; then, in a tone of deep, despairing disgust, ‘Geraniums!—Canaries!—Cartloads of cabbages! bah!’ I had not found myself confronted by so difficult a proposition for many a long day. If only the Reverend had been there! But there was nothing for it but to try a joust with the situation alone. ‘Depend upon it,’ said I, ‘if coming amongst the beautiful natural things of the world has made you despise the mean, ugly, necessary parts of your life, then you have been a fool indeed—one of the worst kind. But are you really the sort of fool you think? And have you not overstated both cases alike? In neither town nor country is there all of good, or all of evil. There are plenty of geraniums and cabbages in Windlecombe, and—alas!—canaries. And in London there is plenty of beauty, if you look for it with the right eyes.’