Never was trifling chronicle begun so light-heartedly as this chatty, idly reminiscent book of ours—and now it is under the great shadow of war, of death and suffering, that we see it pass into its final shape!

The “little paradise on the hill,” with all its innocent pleasures, its everyday joys and cares; with the antics of the “little furry things at play,” the sayings and doings of the “famiglia”; the roses, the bulbs and seedlings; our alluring garden plans, our small despairs and unexpected blisses—our earthly paradise, as we have said, seems like an unreal place. We wander through it with spirit ill at ease; oppressed, as by a curse, through no fault of ours. The sight of an Autumn Catalogue (hitherto so tempting, so full of promised joys) evokes only a sigh. The offer, from the familiar Dutchman, of bulbs which “it will help Belgium if we buy,” turns the heart sick. We know we must not buy bulbs, this year, because we shall have to buy bread—bread for those who will surely lack it—and yet, if we do not buy, others in their turn must needs go wanting. And here is but the merest drop in the monstrous tide of evils wantonly let loose upon humanity by the self-styled Attila! There are times when, looking out upon our place of peace, we feel as though, surely, we must all be lost in some fantastic nightmare. It is a September full of golden sunshine; as this night falls, a benign, placid moon rises over the silent moors into a sky the colour of spun-glass. The breeze choirs softly through the boughs of scented Larch and Birch. All is beauty, harmony—while in those fields yonder, south of the sea, the Huns.... Pray God, by the time the Spring begins to stir shyly once more in our copses; what time the Crocus pushes forth its little tender flame, and the Snowdrop (with us fugitive and reluctant) bends its timorous head under our hill-top winds, we may indeed look back upon these days as upon some dreadful dream!

Meanwhile—even as the Villino itself is now to become a home of convalescence for some of our wounded, still unknown, but to be welcomed soon; even as the Cottage is to be a refuge for women and babes fled from burning Belgian hamlets—the following pages, breathing content and all the harmless ways of life, may perchance help to beguile thoughts surfeited with tales and pictures of mortal strife. We hope that, as a sprig of Lavender, or a Cowslip, by his pillow might for a moment relieve the blood-tinted vision of a stricken soldier, so, perhaps, some unquiet heart labouring under the strain of long-drawn suspense, will find a passing relaxation, a forgotten smile, in the company of Loki and his companions.

Sept. 1914