IN A DEVON LANE
I
have never seen an English lane, but I have a picture of one above the fireplace, and I once smelled hawthorn blooming. A pleasant, hedgerow scent, it seemed to me, with a faint suggestion of primroses on the other side—I say primroses, but Letitia smiles when I declare I can smell them still, or laughs with Robin: they have been in England.
"Are you quite sure about it, Bertram?"
"They do have primroses," I reply, defiantly.
"But are you sure they are primroses?" she demands.
"Smell again, father!" cries my son.
"Yes," I retort; "or violets; they may be violets beyond the hedge."
It is then they laugh at me, and they make a great point of their puzzling questions: am I certain—for example, that the primrose is fragrant enough to be smelled so far, and is it in flower when the hawthorn blooms? That is important, they insist. It is not important, I reply—in my England.
"Your England!" they cry.