196 LTurnaside Cottage.

sunny, furnished according to his own good taste,
with his books and favourite pictures on the walls,
his writing-table near the window, and a new com-
fortable arm-chair for himself. The old piano and
violin find room there still. Mr. Hurst still writes
a good deal, and I often wish that he would collect
and publish his scattered writings; but he is so
retiring, so modest, and so little ambitious, that I
fear I shall never persuade him, and that the public,
while they admire and lay to heart his wise and
sweet sayings, will never know to whom they owe
them.

Many of my master’s former fixed ways of life
are almost given up ; he spends a good deal of
time in the garden now, he rambles with me over
field and bank, only I take care not to let him in
for too rough a scramble. Then he has taken to
bee-keeping ; and the thermometer that used to
regulate the warmth of his room now hangs inside
his bee-shed. And the other day, when the bees
swarmed unexpectedly, after their fashion—but, for
once, not on a Sunday—he flew, hatless and g¢reat-
coatless, to the rescue. I was in school, but I saw
him rush out, and I saw Mrs. Howells presently
following, with not only the much-to-be-desired
hat, but also his walking-stick, though what good
service she expected that to do I cannot imagine.