It is the fashion to talk of our changing climate and bewail the hot summers and hard winters of tradition, but how seldom we pause to marvel at the remarkable constancy of the weather from year to year.

Strict honesty was the policy of most of them; although there were a few who were said to 'find anything before 'tis lost' and to whom findings were keepings.

Nature knows no calendar, the seasons move in a circle.

Candleford Green was but a small village and there were fields and meadows and woods all around it. As soon as Laura crossed the doorstep, she could see some of these. But mere seeing from a distance did not satisfy her; she longed to go alone far into the fields and hear the birds singing, the brooks tinkling, and the wind rustling through the corn, as she had when a child. To smell things and touch things, warm earth and flowers and grasses, and to stand and gaze where no one could see her, drinking it all in.

The luxuries of the few were becoming necessities of the many.

It was ordained that our earthly pilgrammage should be a struggle, and life would be a tame affair if everything went smoothly.

Some great poet or philosopher once said that " he who goes to nature for comfort must go to her empty handed " , and I think he was right.