After this sad experience, Rosalind and I contented ourselves with building castles in Spain; and so great has been our devotion to this occupation that we are already joint owners of immense possessions in that remote and beautiful country. It is a singular circumstance that the dwellers in Arden, almost without exception, are holders of estates in Spain. I have never seen any of these splendid properties; in fact, Rosalind and I have never seen our own castles; but I have heard very full and graphic descriptions of those distant seats. In imagination I have often seen the great piles crowning the crests of wooded hills, whence noble parks and vast landscapes lay spread out; I have been thrilled by the notes of the hunting-horn and discerned from afar the cavalcade of beautiful women and gallant men winding its way to the gates of the courtyard; I have seen splendid banners afloat from turret and casement; I have seen lights flashing at night and heard faint murmurs of music and laughter. Truly they are fortunate who own castles in Spain! In the Forest of Arden there is no such brave show of battlement and rampart. In all our rambles we never came upon a castle or palace; in fact, so far as I remember, no one ever spoke of such structures. They seem to have no place there. Nor is it hard to understand this singular divergence from the ways of a world whose habits and standards are continually reversed in the Forest. In castle and palace, the wealth and splendour of life--everything that gives it grace and beauty to the eye--are treasured within massive walls and protected from the common gaze and touch. Every great park, with its reaches of inviting sward and its groups of noble trees, seems to say to those who pass along the highway: "We are too rare for your using." Every stately palace, with its wonderful paintings and hangings, its sculpture and furnishings, locks its massive gates against the great world without, as if that which it guards were too precious for common eyes. In Arden no one dreams of fencing off a lovely bit of open meadow or a cluster of great trees; private ownership is unknown in the Forest. Those who dwell there are tenants in common of a grander estate than was ever conquered by sword, purchased by gold, or bequeathed by the laws of descent. There are homes for privacy, for the sanctities of love and friendship; but the wealth of life is common to all. Instead of elegant houses, and a meagre, inferior public life, as in the great cities of the world, there are modest homes and a noble common life. If the houses in our cities were simple and home-like in their appointments, and all their treasures of art and beauty were lodged in noble structures, open to every citizen, the world would know something of the habits of those who find in Arden that satisfying thought of life which is denied them among men. Moderation, simplicity, frugality for our private and personal wants; splendid profusion, noble