A very pleasant day in the country, a long walk, a lazy afternoon, gradually seeing everyone depart for the City, leaving only four of us to sit by the fire with our books and our knitting. As usual, on Sundays, we let the maid go home at two-thirty, and when supper time came, we all became very busy housewives. My opportunities to satisfy a craving, natural to nearly all women, are rather rare, so though I am not a good cook, but love to set a table and arrange a salad and do whatever else I am allowed to do.

I put the table before the open fire, and with only the fire light and the lamps, our pewter, silver and blue and white china looked very nice indeed. When supper was over, and everything was put away, we settled down again for a peaceful evening and went early to bed in preparation for a return to New York City this morning.

The quiet of the night in the country was such a contrast to the continuing sounds of any city, that just the opening of the windows, and listening to the occasional creaking of a branch or the distant cracking of the ice in the brook, was restful in itself. Those who never sink into this peace of nature lose a tremendous well of strength, for there is something healing and life giving in the mere atmosphere surrounding a country house.