'There is "two-o'clock bush,"' said Cicely, pointing to a large hawthorn; 'the shepherds look from the corner of the entrenchment, and if the sun is over that bush they know it is two o'clock.' She was driving me in the pony-trap over the Downs, and we were going to call on Mrs. Luckett's brother, who had a farm among the hills. He had not been down to Lucketts' Place for more than twelve months, and Cicely was resolved to make him promise to come. Though they may be in reality much attached and affectionate, country folk are apt to neglect even their nearest and dearest. The visit is put off from month to month; then comes the harvest, and nothing else can be thought of; and the longer the lapse the more difficult is the remedy. The footpath of friendship, says the ancient British triad, if not frequently travelled becomes overgrown with briars. Those who live by the land forget the passage of the years. A year is but a harvest. After the ploughing and sowing and cleaning, the reaping and thatching and threshing, what is there left of the twelvemonth? It has gone like a day. Thus it is that a farmer talks of twenty years since as if it was only last week, and seems unable to grasp the flight of time till it is marked and emphasised by some exceptional occurrence. Cicely meant to wake her uncle from this slumber. We started early on a beautiful July morning--partly to avoid the heat, and partly because Cicely wished to be away when young Aaron shortened the tails of the puppies in the rickyard. (This he did in the old-fashioned way, with his teeth.) Besides we thought that, if we waited till later, Uncle Bennet might be gone to market at Overboro'. We passed several farmers leaning or sitting on the stiles by the road, watching for a friend to come along and give them a lift into town. Some of them had waited like this every market morning for years. There were fewer on the road than usual, it being near harvest, when many do not so much care to leave home.