She was in a state of intense delight at our disappointment about the ruins, and discussed the situation in that soft Somersetshire accent that gives such breadth and jollity to the language.

"E'll not vind it a beet loike ta buik," she said, with her cheery laugh.

"Buik's weel mad' up; it houlds 'ee loike, and 'ee can't put it by, but there's nobbut three pairts o't truth.

Hunnerds cooms up here to se't," she added, with a chuckle.
The fact is that the traditional and the ideal are as inextricably mixed in this charming story of "Lorna Doone" as the thousand varieties of seeds in the fairy tale which the princess was expected to sort out, and it would be almost as difficult to separate them.

Perhaps the best way, after all, is--not to try.
Katharine Hillard.
[Illustration: map] CONTENTS: I.