have taken. I'll write to you, madam, as soon as we get there, and I
hope with all my heart and soul that when we see what's wrong with
it--and there's bound to be something--that it may not be anything bad
enough to make us give it up and go floating off in voidness, like a
spider-web blown before a summer breeze, without knowing what it's
going to run against and stick to, and, what is more, probably lose the
money we paid in advance.




_Letter Number Four_


CHEDCOMBE, SOMERSETSHIRE

Last winter Jone and I read all the books we could get about the rural
parts of England, and we knew that the country must be very beautiful,
but we had no proper idea of it until we came to Chedcombe. I am not
going to write much about the scenery in this part of the country,
because, perhaps, you have been here and seen it, and anyway my writing
would not be half so good as what you could read in books, which don't
amount to anything.

All I'll say is that if you was to go over the whole of England, and
collect a lot of smooth green hills, with sheep and deer wandering
about on them; brooks, with great trees hanging over them, and vines
and flowers fairly crowding themselves into the water; lanes and roads
hedged in with hawthorn, wild roses, and tall purple foxgloves; little
woods and copses; hills covered with heather; thatched cottages like