Up and down hill we went, then we dropped down to West Meon, a neat, clean village. The chief occupation of its inhabitants at the time appeared to be in standing idly at their doorways, or loafing in the road; it somehow reminded me of a scene at a theatre ready set, with the minor performers in place and awaiting the principal actors to come on the stage and play their parts. I often wonder how these villagers live with no local industry; they cannot live on one another, and they do not seem exactly the sort of people to receive dividends on investments, though in all of them at least the public-house appears to prosper. It is a problem beyond me. Here we crossed the Meon on a little stone bridge and proceeded by a delightfully tree-shaded road, as pleasant as a road could be, and along by the river-side to the tiny decayed village of Warnford, a mere hamlet rather of a few pretty and ancient cottages deep in woods where each cottage is a picture. Yet it had a depressingly lonely look as though the village were under some spell, for I did not see a soul about it, not a face at a window, not a figure at a door, no one in its cottage gardens, not a child, nor a dog, nor a fowl in the road. I stopped in the village for an hour, or more, to make some sketches and to take some photographs, yet all that while there was no sign of life about the place, no one going or coming. I could not but marvel at this, it was so curious an experience. It looked like a deserted village, yet the cottages appeared well cared for, and their little gardens loved and well tended. The strange loneliness and silence of the spot impressed me. Why was it? I could not account for it, unless all its inhabitants were away making holiday, but where were the dogs and the fowls? It might almost have been one of those picturesque model villages one sees in an exhibition at an early hour before the very properly dressed up and show village maidens have arrived and when no one is there, only it was far too real for that. There was one thing besides its loneliness that seemed strange and incomplete about the spot, though for a time I could not realise what I missed; then it struck me it was the absence of a presiding church, that is generally such a prominent feature of a village and centres the life of it. I looked carefully around, but nowhere could I see the church; there was no sign of one, nor a chapel. For even peaceful villagers cannot worship one God in one way.