Not a sign of him! Not a sound! Not even a whisper of air to rustle the glistening laurel-leaves, or stir the flat laurestine-sprays.
I return to the road, and inculcate patience on myself.

Why may not I take a lesson in easy-mindedness from Vick?
Was not it Hartley Coleridge who suggested that perhaps dogs have a language of smell; and that what to us is a noisome smell, is to them a beautiful poem?
If so, Vick is searching for lyrics and epics in the ditch.

I stroll along the wintry brown hedge-row, and begin to pick Roger a little, scant nosegay.

He shall see how patient I am! how _un_sulky! with what sunny mildness I can wait his leisure! I have already two or three snow-drops in my breast, that I picked as I came through the garden.

To these I add a drooping hazel-tassel or two, and a little bit of honeysuckle-leaf, just breaking greenly into life.