This is my _apologia pro domicilio meo_, but why, after all, should I need to explain a longing for my own rooftree, my own hearth, my own pathway leading to my own front door? I must have come into the world with a belief that for every woman born was intended a little nook or corner or cranny of her own. So here is mine, a quarter of a mile from the village, not many miles from the sea, seventy odd miles from London, and how far from that heaven where you are? Can you tell me the way and the length of the road? Sometimes it seems set on the very edge of eternity, and I keep expecting to see stray cherubim, seraphim, and angels stop to ask the rest of the way. I haven't begun on the garden; in a way I haven't let myself see it, there has been so much to do in the house; but, if you will believe it, and of course you will, being an Englishman, a plum tree and a pear tree are espaliered on the sunny southern wall of the house, branching out a bit over one of the windows. There are two apple trees, a clump of holly, ferns in a corner, rosebushes, and climbing roses. I shall not know all the colours until next summer, though some of them bloom late; I have discovered white ones, and pale yellow, and one of a deep and lovely red. The garden is neglected, weedy, and grass-grown, but I find hollyhocks, foxglove, larkspur, and a forgotten violet bed. A small kitchen garden borders my lady's garden, and Peter shall till this. Don walks up and down the paths with a step so exactly fitted to your old pace in the college gardens that I feel always a little shock of surprise in not seeing you, as of old, just ahead. Scraps of conversation drift to me from Madge and Peter when they happen to work together; upon the invincibility of the British they agree, and upon the fact that no foe will ever dare set foot upon the British isles, but in matters of social opinion they are hopelessly at variance. Madge is a conservative, standing staunchly by the Church, the 'All, the 'Ouse of Lords; Peter is an extreme radical, a "hatheist", as he solemnly informed me, eager for anything new in word or thought, and usually misappropriating both. He reads American paper-covered novels, and a touch of transatlantic slang creeps now and then into his conversation, or a queer abstract phrase from some socialist lecturer whom he doesn't understand but accepts entire. Many a bit of stubborn debate comes to me through open door or window, as Peter defends his rights as man and scoffs at the social system. "Wy _'im_ at the 'All? Wy not me?" was the last I heard. "You!" said Madge scornfully. "You couldn't even stand up on the floors, they are that shiny and polished."