Then I turned and looked over the surrounding country. There were broad meadows slightly descending to a long line of trees, between which I could see the glimmering of water. On the other side of the road, and extending back of the inn, there were low, forest-crowned hills. Then my eyes, returning to nearer objects, fell upon an old-fashioned garden, with bright flowers and rows of box, which lay beyond the house. "Why on earth," I thought, "should I pass such a place as this and go on to the Cheltenham, with its waiters in coat tails, its nurse-maids, and its rows of people on piazzas? She could not know my tastes, and perhaps she had thought but little on the subject, and had taken her ideas from her father. He is just the man to be contented with nothing else than a vast sprawling hotel, with disdainful menials expecting tips." I rolled my bicycle along the little path which ran around the green, and knocked upon the open door of Holly Sprig Inn. In a few moments a boy came into the hall. He was not dressed like an ordinary hotel attendant, but his appearance was decent, and he might have been a sub-clerk or a head hall-boy. "Can I obtain lodging here for the night?" I asked. The boy looked at me from head to foot, and an expression such as might be produced by too much lemon juice came upon his face. "No," said he; "we don't take cyclers." This reception was something novel to me, who had cycled over thousands of miles, and I was not at all inclined to accept it at the hands of the boy. I stepped into the hall. "Can I see the master of this house?" said I. "There ain't none," he answered, gruffly. "Well, then, I want to see whoever is in charge." He looked as if he were about to say that he was in charge, but he had no opportunity for such impertinence. A female figure came into the hall and advanced towards me. She stopped in an attitude of interrogation. "I was just inquiring," I said, with a bow--for I saw that the new-comer was not a servant--"if I could be accommodated here for the night, but the boy informed me that cyclers are not received here." "What!" she exclaimed, and turned as if she would speak to the boy, but he had vanished. "That is a mistake, sir," she said to me. "Very few wheelmen do stop here, as they prefer a hotel farther on, but we are glad to entertain them when they come." It was not very light in the hall in which we stood, but I could see that this lady was young, that she was of medium size, and good-looking. "Will you walk in, sir, and register?" she said. "I will have your wheel taken around to the back."