If you want a bonfire with a delicious scent that will haunt you with a poignant memory long after its ashes have gone the way of all things, pile up dead apple leaves and twigs, pine needles, beech leaves, the trimmings of the sweet bay bushes, brambles, rose-stalks and larch—and the incense of the forest will be yours, bringing with it a mystic sense of nearness to primæval things that no perfume sold in cut-glass bottles has yet been able to conjure up.
We didn’t wait till sun-down, however, that day; for we were in the most thrilling part of the afternoon forking-up, and our complexions were at their very, _very_ worst, when Abigail tripped out and announced:
“The Rector. . . . Oh, you needn’t worry about your appearance, ma’am. Miss Virginia’s talking to him. . . . Yes, she’s changed _her_ dress, and is telling him just what you look like.”
“I HAVE been wondering,” the Rector began, “if it would be possible for you to let us have a Temperance Meeting here in your cottage? I feel sure it would be productive of good, and we sadly need more aggressive Temperance work in this parish. And a little gathering in a private house would be more of a novelty than one held in the Parish Room, or at the Rectory.”
“A Temperance Meeting!” I repeated, rather hesitatingly, I confess. I knew well enough that there was work waiting to be done in this direction, but whether those who most needed reforming could be got inside my door was quite another matter.
“Oh, but I am not meaning an evening meeting for the purpose of reaching the men themselves,” the Rector explained. “My idea is to have an afternoon Ladies’ Meeting to discuss more particularly the question of prohibition. We might eventually get up a week of meetings in various parts of the district. Only it all wants talking over. There are a number of ladies who would be willing to aid, if only some definite scheme were put before them. If you would issue the invitations, I know they would be only too pleased to come; and we could possibly get a committee appointed as the initial step in the proceedings.”
I saw at once that the idea was a practical one. Quite a goodly handful of ladies would be available from houses dotted here and there upon the hillside. So we made a list of those living near enough to me to be invited.