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204 regard to toll quite so clearly; doubtless thinking it would have been an unsatisfactory policy in the estimation of his most profitable customers. Our ways diverging at the edge of the town, we exchanged a hearty "Good evening" with him, and both of us voted unanimously that our meeting such a good specimen of everyday human nature was a pleasant incident, bringing us down from rather visionary heights of observation and musing to the common levels of working life.

We found the little inn where we had lunched swept and garnished for our reception. The landlady, a smart, bright young woman, had somehow or other conceived the notion at our first call, that we were not exactly of the common run of her tap-room guests; so, on our return, she ushered us into her little back parlour, which was full ten feet square, and as comfortable and genial a little room as could be. There were no rigid right angles about it, but its walls were wavy and rounded and softened at the corners; and the ceiling was so delightfully low that I could not stand upright with my hat on under the large beam overhead. The best furniture of the house was tastefully arrayed in this cosy little room, and florid saints and soldiers stood on the mantle-piece in rich robes of porcelain velvet. And there was the genuine English tea-kettle on the bright hob