My dear Herbert,—­My holidays are over, and I am back at work again.  I have got your delightful letter; it was silly to be anxious. . . .

To-day I was bicycling; I was horribly preoccupied, as, alas, I often am, with my own plans and thoughts.  I was worrying myself about my work, fretting about the thousand little problems that beset a schoolmaster, trying to think out a chapter of a book which I am endeavouring to write, my mind beating and throbbing like a feverish pulse.  I kept telling myself that the copses were beautiful, that the flowers were enchanting, that the long line of distant hills seen across the wooded valleys and the purple plain were ravishingly tranquil and serene; but it was of no use; my mind ran like a mill-race, a stream of thoughts jostling and hurrying on, in spite of my efforts to shut the sluice.

Suddenly I turned a corner by a little wood, and found myself looking over into the garden of a small, picturesque cottage, which has been smartened up lately, and has become, I suppose, the country retreat of some well-to-do people.  It was a pretty garden; a gentle slope of grass, borders full of flowers, and an orchard behind, whitening into bloom, with a little pool in the shady heart of it.  On the lawn were three people, obviously and delightfully idle; an elderly man sate in a chair, smiling, smoking, reading a paper.  The other two, a younger man and a young woman, were walking side by side, their heads close together, laughing quietly at some gentle jest.  A perambulator stood by the porch.  Both the men looked like prosperous professional people, clean-shaven, healthy, and contented.  I inferred, for no particular reason, that the young pair were man and wife, lately married, and that the elder man was the father-in-law.  I had this passing glimpse, no more, of an interior; and then I was riding among the spring woods again.

Of course it was only an impression, but this happy, sunshiny scene, so suddenly opened to my gaze, so suddenly closed again, was like a parable.  I felt as if I should have liked to stop, to take off my hat, and thank my unknown friends for making so simple, pleasant, and sweet a picture.  I dare say they were as preoccupied in professional matters, as careful and troubled as myself, if I had known more about them.  But in that moment they were finding leisure simply to taste and enjoy the wholesome savours of life, and were neither looking backward in regret nor forward in anticipation.  I dare say the jokes that amused them were mild enough, and that I should have found their conversation tedious and tiresome if I had been made one of the party.  But they were symbolical; they stood for me, and will stand, as a type of what we ought to aim at more; and that is simply living.  It is a lesson which you yourself are no doubt learning in your fragrant, shady garden.  You have no need to make money, and your only business is to get better.  But