We turned off into the pine-wood by a narrow roadway. The fragrance of balsam made me long to close my eyes. At the edge of the road, on either side, ran a ditch through which water tinkled over gravel. On its banks grew fern and foxglove. The silent aisles of the wood were carpeted with the tan of fallen needles. Sunlight, drifting between branches, slashed golden rags in the olive-tinted shadows. My mind became a blank through pure enjoyment as I listened to the monologue of gay chatter that was going on beside me. He was doing for me now just what he had done for me so often as a child, throwing down the walls of conventional tyrannies and showing me the road of escape to nature. Suddenly out of the basking stillness rose a farmyard clamor--cocks crowing, ducks quacking, and the boastful clucking of hens. We had reached the top of the ridge and were bowling along the level. Toby pricked up his ears and quickened his trotting. Round a bend we swung into sight of a low-thatched house, standing in a clearing. Its windows were leaded and opened outwards. In front grew a garden, sun-saturated, riotous with flowers, and partly hidden by a high hawthorn hedge. In the hedge was a white swing-gate, from which a red-brick path ran up to the threshold. Across the gate one had a glimpse of beehives standing a-row; the air was heavy with mingled scents of pine, wild thyme, and honey. The impression that fastened on my imagination was one of exquisite cleanliness: the sky, the gleaming chalk road, the white-painted woodwork of the cottage, everything was dazzlingly spotless. Our wheels had hardly halted before the gate, when I saw Aunt Lavinia in the doorway unfastening her apron. Neat and methodical as ever, she folded it carefully, and laid it on a chair before coming out to us. “Lavinia, Lavinia! We’re here,” shouted Uncle Obad. She came down the path, prim and unhurried, determined not to let herself go. “Repose is refinement” she used to tell me. Nothing in her manner was ruffled. She still carried herself with a certain grave air of sweet authority. The rustle of her starched print-dress gave her an atmosphere of nurse-like austerity. She had not changed, save that the look of worry had gone from her face, and her eyes were untired. “It’s glad I am to see you.” She spoke quietly and, when she kissed me, was careful not to crumple her dress. “Dignified and graceful--that’s her,” said Uncle Obad. We had plenty to talk about while we were getting over our first strangeness. I had to see the house and all its arrangements. My room was at the back, looking out from the ridge over smoking tree-tops far away across undulating downs.