Bytwene Mershe and Averil
When spray beginneth to spring
The litel foul hath hire wyl
On hire lud to synge.

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I can see her out of my window on a branch so fine that every time she sings it bends in delight. Oh, it is such a sweet sound. It is an early morning Heron bird….

And now you must wake up and leap and fly out of bed. There is a smell of coffee from downstairs and I run on to the landing and call “Mrs. Buttercup! Will you please put the breakfast in the garden.” And I come back to find you dressed already and a staggering beauty in corduroy trousers and a flannel shirt with a cramoisie necktie! And then Richard comes up from the field with a big bright celandine in his buttonhole. And you say as we go down, “My God, there's a terrific lot to be done to-day”—but not as if you minded. While I pour out the coffee you cut up the bread, and Richard says, “I say, Jack, couldn't you make a fine thing of the house from here with the sun on it like that.” And just at that moment Mrs. Buttercup hangs a strip of carpet out of an upper window which gives it the finishing touch. We are going to drive over to a sale to-day in our funny little painted cart to see if we can buy some ducks and we have to call at the station on the way back for a parcel of paper….

Knock: “C'est la blanchisseuse, Madame. Je suis très matinale. Il fait beau, n'est-ce pas?”

Well, it's a good thing she did come. I might have gone on for ever….

Funny you should have mentioned a cow. I was worrying madly over a nice name for a cow in bed last night. I wanted first to call it “Chaucer”: then I thought “Edmund Spenser”—and only after I had ranged up and down for a long time did I remember that a cow was feminine!! and would kick over the pail and give you a swish in the face and then stalk off if she were so insulted.

There is a certain little white pink, striped with dark red, called “sops-in-wine.” We must grow it.

I have also a feeling too deep for sound or foam for all kinds of salads.