"Oh yes," he says; "every one calls her Mary, don't you know; but it's because she is such a favorite; it isn't impertinence at all."

And then he proceeds:

66

There was a very good Pink un, though, on Saturday. Came out strong for the Derby week. Perhaps you don't read the Pink un ?"

"I really don't quite understand." "The Sporting Times, don't you know," he says, lightly. "Why, the other sporting papers ain't in it now. If you don't read it, you should; you'll make the acquaintance of some merry youths-Peter Blobbs, the Shifter, Gubbins, and the rest. Best paper going; no gammon about it; talks about what you really want to know. I can't say I've landed a fortune over its tips; but who could have expected Harvester to come in like that? Were you at the Derby?"

And while he is thus pleasantly getting along, the English girl with the pince-nez is being severely lectured by the Philosopher on the iniquity of state-enforced vaccination, she having innocently mentioned M. Pasteur's experiments; and the Starspangled Scotchman is declaring that the purity of American courts of law is a thing that we have no conception of in this God-forsaken land; and the three pretty American maidens are having a quiet confabulation about Paris; while their young countryman, the artist, is sketching on an envelope a rough plan of the house that he is about to build in Melbury Road.

"But it is all studio," I say to him.

"Why, yes. That's just what I want.

The blithest lass, Than primrose sweeter, or the clover-grass. Fair is the kingcup that in meadow blows, Fair is the daisy that beside her grows; Fair is the gillyflower, of gardens sweet, Fair is the marigold, for pottage meet: But Blouzelind's than gillyflower more fair, Than daisy, marigold, or kingeup rare.” It was most neglectful of those of us who were familiar with this old town and its antiquities to omit giving any guidance in that direction to our American cousins. But the fact is that English people have got into the way of taking old castles, abbeys, and similar things for granted-that is, in their own country; and so it happened that not one of our party went to see the ruins of Guildford Castle, with its Norman keep, nor yet Archbishop Abbot's Hospital, nor yet the old Grammar School, nor the Guildhall. Our young artist friend, it is true, went away for an early stroll, note-book in hand, through the quaint quiet streets, jotting down here and there a bit of a gable, or a curious archway, or Elizabethan house front; and perhaps wondering whether the original owner of one of those odd small houses, as he sat in the bay-window there and read the last news-letter sent down from London, may have heard tell of a young man recently come from Stratford-onAvon who was proving himself a most industrious and shifty playwright, and had already won the favor of the 'prentices in quite an unusual degree. But these artistic and archæological studies suddenly cease. Our American youth finds before him a bric-a-brac shop, the shutters just taken down, and that is

enough; he disappears, he is lost, and his companion sadly betakes himself to the hotel alone. For who would be a party to such an unnatural proceeding as the purchasing of furniture and knickknacks by a bachelor? What kind of a bird is it that builds and feathers its nest for itself alone?

Breakfast over and everybody ready, our places are changed on this occasion, and the English youth and maiden find themselves side by side in front. Very winsome she looks this morning; the air is a trifle cooler, and has brought added color to her cheeks; and as there is something rather mannish in her attire-in the gray riding-coat and gray felt hat-surely her companion may be excused for saying, pleasantly,

Are you going to Ascot this year, Miss Deane ?"

She seems surprised; she glances at him through her pince-nez.

"Do you mean the races ? I have never been to any race."

"You won't miss much this time, anyway," he says, with a confident air. "Promises to be as dull as the Derby. Fancy Ascot without the royal procession! But Ascot's ever so much jollier for ladies than the Derby, or even the Oaks. I mean in an ordinary year. The Derby's too rough, don't you know. And yet there are fewer and fewer people going down by road; the cabmen and livery-stable keepers will have to lower their tariff before long. Three sovs for a hansom, eighteen for a landau and a good-looking pair-rather hot, isn't it?”

"I suppose so," she answers, somewhat distantly; and then she turns to the Philosopher, who is sitting just behind her, and begins to inquire about this Hog's Back which we are approaching, and soon we hear of nothing but "upheavals of the chalk," "breaking off of curves," "inclined position of the remaining side of the flexure," and so forth. The youth is rather left out; his gaze is fixed on the wide country; and he is whistling to him

self, absently, the "Glouglou" air from La Mascotte.

This Hog's Back is certainly one of the most singular features of the southern counties. It is a raised ridge of chalk some seven miles long, never more than half a mile in breadth, and rising to no greater height than five hundred feet; but its slopes are steep, and as the wooded country around it is comparatively level, it appears, as you drive along the high plateau, as if all England were spread out on both sides of you. The view is magnificent even on such a dull gray morn ing as this is; dark and intense are the greens of the woods and the hedges, and the reds and purple-reds of the fields; and as the landscape stretches out and out and up and up to the high horizon line, the atmospheric blue deepens and deepens until it becomes a faint aerial indigo where it meets the leaden-gray sky. But whoever wants to know what this country is like may turn to Cobbett's Rural Rides. Will iam Cobbett was born at Farnham, a couple of miles beyond the Hog's Back, and

he died at Normandy Farm, which we can see down there on our right. And so we go bowling along this high and narrow plateau-the cold air scented by the luxuriant hawthorn hedges-until the drag is put on, and we get slowly down into Farnham.

Farnham as we stop to water the horses, it occurs to some of us that the name sounds familiar. Was it not here that a certain Captain Esmond, riding down from London on a memorable occasion, stopped for the night, with the hope of seeing his dear mistress at Walcote on the morrow? Farnham: is not Moor Park close by, where in former days an "uncouth, disagreeable young Irishman, who had narrowly escaped plucking at Dublin, attended Sir William as amanuensis, for board and twenty pounds a year, dined at the second table, wrote bad verses in praise of his employer, and made love to a very pretty dark-eyed young girl who waited on Lady Gifford"? And when the Irish secretary and the dark-eyed waitingmaid-that is to say, when Swift and

(including her of the ferocious feathers) went on by themselves, and the English youth lit a moody cigarette, and the American artist had his eye on the shop windows, lest peradventure he might spy out some brass candlesticks there; and the English maiden was propounding to the Philosopher all kinds of distressing conundrums about the storage of electricity.

However, our good-looking English lad had his innings, as he himself would have said, at lunch. That ceremony took place in a meadow some mile or two south of Alton; and when the great white tablecloth was spread out on the rich green grass, and when the grooms had brought

self, two biscuits, a glass of water, two or three cherries, and a cigarette satisfied his modest requirements; and when he had done all he could in the way of helping the women-folk, he endeavored to entertain them with a little playful facetiousness. It was not much, but it was well meant, and it was well received, for all of the party seemed in excellent spirits. The Star-spangled Scotchman sang "Annie Laurie." Even our American artist friend had got over something of his shyness, and was become almost friendly, in a timid way, with the girl of the feathers.

The country between Alton and Alresford is exceedingly beautiful and very

lonely. The roads are unusually wide for the most part, and bordered with a wilderness of hawthorn and fir and elm and hazel, and they wind on and on through a wooded and undulating landscape, with nothing in the shape of a village to be seen. Some of us set out to walk this distance, the horses still resting at Alton; and far ahead of us went two togetherone a gaunt, thin, tall figure in a black frock-coat, the other in gray, with a white feather in her felt hat. Science hath charms to soothe the gentle breast, and we knew that the English maiden was enjoying transport as the Philosopher discoursed to her of the future triumphs of the doctrine of evolution. And as for him? "What joy to wind along the cool retreat, To stop and gaze on Delia as I go, To mingle sweet discourse with kisses sweet, And teach my lovely scholar all I know!" But, alas! we knew there was no such solace for the man of molecules. An obstacle existed, a substantial obstacle weighing fifteen stone-a Mrs. Philosopher, living at Clapham, and the mother of three young men in business in the City. Nevertheless the two figures away along the road there were picturesque enough, and never were the groves of Academe so quiet for the conversation of master and pupil; while as for the rest of us, who dare not venture into these wilds of speculationwell, the Star-spangled Scotchman, always the life and the soul of the party, was now singing (with the whole of the American colony for chorus) a cheerful ditty about the soul of John Brown, which unfortunate ghost seems to have been visited with the curse that fell on the Wandering Jew. Anyhow, we marched along. We got on the coach again to drive through the richly wooded Tichborne country, and on by Ovington Gate and Magdalen Hill. In the clear glow of the summer evening we came in sight of Winchester, the ruddy mass of houses lying in the hollow dominated by the massive tower of the cathedral; and when we drove down into the vale, and then up into the steep High Street, be sure it was at the old George Inn that we stopped. And here there was a hurried descent, for we had to troop away to the great cathedral ere the gates should be closed for the night. Fortunately we were just in time. And in deed it was a strange kind of thing, this sudden forsaking of the busy and noisy outer world, and the finding one's self in

the solemn silence of this noble and stately building, confronted everywhere by the records and monuments of an almost immemorial past. I am afraid that we were a dreadfully ignorant lot of people, that our acquaintance with the history of the kingdom of Wessex, and our recollection of Kynegils, and of Kynewalch the son of Kynegils, and even of St. Swithin and Ethelwald, were of a meagre and nebulous description; but even the most ignorant of us could not but be struck by the sight of those young American girls, with their pretty knickknacks of Parisian finery, standing by the dark tombstone of William Rufus in the solemn and hushed twilight of this great building. And they themselves were impressed, as any one could see, and were overcome with a kind of awe, when they came to the Mortuary Chests, and read the names of those whose remains are preserved there-Ethelwulf the father of Alfred, Hardyknut, and others. The party split up, and strayed about a good deal. Information sounds barren inside a cathedral; it should be acquired before you go there. The verger's voice is a disturbing element in the strange stillness. And perhaps some of us, wandering away into the solitudes of the twilit building, were thinking of another afternoon, not quite so far back as the days of the red king, the afternoon that Captain Esmond, not quite sure of his reception by the lady of Castlewood, had ridden down to Winchester, and left his horse at the George, and come over to the cathedral here, where he knew he should at least see her. They walked home together in the dusk toward Walcote, which was but a mile off, and surely one may be permitted to quote here the beautiful passage that follows:

And

"But I knew you would come back-I own that. That is no one's fault. to-day, Henry, in the anthem, when they sang it, "When the Lord turned the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream," I thought, "Yes, like them that dream-them that dream." And then it went, "They that sow in tears shall reap in joy; and he that goeth forth and weepeth shall doubtless come home again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him." I looked up from the book and saw you. I was not surprised when I saw you. I knew you would come, my dear, and saw the gold sunshine round your head.'

"She smiled an almost wild smile as she looked up at him. The moon was up by