I. Coming Home
II. About Town
III. In Beautiful England
IV. The Home of Childhood
V. Halcyon Days
VI. Earliest Recollections
VII. Old Times and New
VIII. Some Early Sundays
IX. My Grandfather's Days
X. Outdoor Life
XI. At the Seaside
XII. Excursions to Sandringham
XIII. A Trip South
XIV. "Devon, Glorious Devon!"
XV. In the Garden of England
There was a gap of thirty-eight years, almost to a day, between mydeparture from England (1870), a five-weeks-old young bride, and myreturn thither (1908), an old woman. And for about seven-eighths of thatlong time in Australia, while succeeding very well in making the best ofthings, I was never without a subconscious sense of exile, a chronicnostalgia, that could hardly bear the sight of a homeward-bound ship.This often-tantalised but ever-unappeased desire to be back in my nativeland wore the air of a secret sorrow gently shadowing an otherwise happylife, while in point of fact it was a considerable source of happinessin itself, as I now perceive. For where would be the interest andinspiration of life without something to want that you cannot get, butthat it is open to you to try for? I tried hard to bridge the distanceto my goal for over thirty years, working, planning, failing, startingagain, building a thousand air-castles, more or less, and seeing themburst like soap-bubbles as soon as they began to materialise; then Igave up. The children had grown too old to be taken; moreover, they hadattained to wills of their own and did not wish to go. One had fallen tothe scythe of the indiscriminate Reaper, and that immense loss dwindledall other losses to nothing at all. I cared no more where I lived, solong as the rest were with me. In England my father and mother, who hadso longed for me, as I for them, were in their graves; no old home wasleft to go back to. I was myself a