She has been fortunate in sub-letting for the greater part of her
seven years' lease.
THE PEACE OF MOWSLE BARTON
Crefton Lockyer sat at his ease, an ease alike of body and soul,
in the little patch of ground, half-orchard and half-garden, that
abutted on the farmyard at Mowsle Barton. After the stress and
noise of long years of city life, the repose and peace of the
hill-begirt homestead struck on his senses with an almost dramatic
intensity. Time and space seemed to lose their meaning and their
abruptness; the minutes slid away into hours, and the meadows and
fallows sloped away into middle distance, softly and
imperceptibly. Wild weeds of the hedgerow straggled into the
flower-garden, and wallflowers and garden bushes made counter-
raids into farmyard and lane. Sleepy-looking hens and solemn
preoccupied ducks were equally at home in yard, orchard, or
roadway; nothing seemed to belong definitely to anywhere; even the
gates were not necessarily to be found on their hinges. And over
the whole scene brooded the sense of a peace that had almost a
quality of magic in it. In the afternoon you felt that it had
always been afternoon, and must always remain afternoon; in the
twilight you knew that it could never have been anything else but
twilight.
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