Page:Three Years in Europe.djvu/53

Rh among them, and it is not possible for them in their little villages to be as regardless of the comforts of their families as their brethren in towns often are. Step into one of the neat village cottages, and the sight is by no means displeasing. You see the mother and her children living in peace, though alas! often in poverty, and robust healthy-looking village-girls with roses and carnations blooming on their cheeks. Their ordinary food is bread and cheese with a little of meat, perhaps, two or three times the week. In some parts of England, the village housewife frequently buys a pig and feeds it for the best part of the year, and when it is big and fat, kills it and preserves it with care. Small slices from it are among many poor families the only meat they can afford to have, and one pig lasts a family for a full twelve month. It is a pleasant sight on Sundays to see neatly-dressed villagers and blooming village-girls, and, now and then the landlord too and his family assembled together under the roof of the quiet village church.

There are many things in Cambridge worth seeing, and I enjoyed my visit to that town very much, indeed. At Christ's College you still see the mulberry tree planted by Milton, which is supported on all sides to prevent its falling down. The King's College Chapel is said to be the most splendid in England, it is large and richly decorated. The St. John's Chapel is also a very good one. The Trinity College Library is beautifully furnished and fitted up with its book-shelves and statues finely arranged. Among the latter you see those of Addison and Pope, of