A New England schoolma'am, who has made a Cook's tour, will almost have tears in her voice as she wanders on with her commonplaces about hawthorn hedges and thatched cottages and white or red farms.

Why are we not unconsciously pathetic about German cottages and Italian villas?
Because we have not, in centuries past, had the habit of being born in them.

It is only an English cottage and an English lane, whether white with hawthorn blossoms or bare with winter, that wakes in us that little yearning, grovelling tenderness that is so sweet.

It is only nature calling us home." Mrs.Worthington came in during the course of the morning to find her standing before her window looking out at the Thames, the Embankment, the hansom cabs themselves, with an absolutely serious absorption.

This changed to a smile as she turned to greet her.
"I am delighted," she said.