and the digestive system is benefited. To the grass-eater it is the tonic appetiser which his meals are to the cigarette-smoker. Even this, you see, was provided for the thrice and four times happy ass. The road to market is a pleasant road of an easy length, not hilly, passing among trees. Jack liked very well to jog his four miles there in his fifty minutes and to return in his forty-five. It set him up for the week, and it gave him that feeling of usefulness which, in however modified a form—Charity Matinées let us say, and most subscription dances—is necessary to perfect contentment.
But now—his hire is but a shilling—now he lives in a sort of Purgatory, not quite Hell. Any afternoon he may see Mrs. Bunting at the gate, and at the sight his heart dies within him. He knows what this portends. Whereas the really charming spectacle of Mrs. Bunting at the gate was wont to arouse within him the happy anticipation of gentle movement not over-prolonged, for which his week's repose had absolutely inclined him; whereas the hebdomadary frolic was but a pleasant break in a monotony, rendered by it doubly delicious; whereas his legs carried him joyously to meet Mrs. Bunting, and he wore his shafts as a man wears his holiday suit, now he lowers his ears, ignores Mrs. Bunting, and tears
