quite different, even at the price of the truth, unlike the clerk my friend laughed aloud at the trick he had played and how he had trapped me, then insisted on my dining with him that night. Once on the journey I thought I saw an opportunity to turn the tables and to score in this way off a stranger. We were chatting in the smoke-room of our inn after dinner, when, to my surprise, I discovered he was reading a book I had written; he knew not my name, nor did I know his, and I hoped he might make some disparaging remark about my book, then I would tell him I wrote it, and could myself indulge in a laugh. But it never came off, for he put down the book unconcernedly and talked to me most of the evening; evidently he preferred my talk to my writing. But to return to the little church of Warnford, it depressed me with its silence and gloom; I was glad to get out into the fresh air, for it seemed like a tomb. As I was leaving, under the porch I caught sight of a curious old Saxon sun-dial, a somewhat rare thing to find, and over it was a long Latin inscription relating, as far as I could make out, though my Latin is rusty, to the rebuilding of the church a long while ago. The dial probably belonged to a still more ancient church that once stood on the spot, but why it was placed there where no sun could reach it I could not understand. Just by the side of the neglected churchyard I caught a glimpse of the ruins of an old house buried in trees, and a grand house it must have been in its day, for six upstanding stone pillars of what once was its great hall testify to its size, but little else remains but some broken and mouldering walls. Of its history I could glean nothing, for there was no one about to ask this. Then I returned to the car, and once more proceeded on my pleasant way down the wooded valley, with the musical murmuring of the river and the song of the wind in the woods for company; and I had all this lovely country to myself for some miles, except for a stray farmer's gig and a cart or two--a country where to my mind's eye peace dwelt in lowly cottages and scattered old-time farmhouses; truly the trail of the serpent might be there as well as elsewhere, but I saw no sign of it. To me it was a valley of peace and contentment. Perhaps it was because I was an onlooker only and had no concern in its life. It is well to be a mere onlooker at times, then the drama of the little world before you runs smoothly; you do not see behind the scenes. You behold neither the tragedy nor the comedy of life, only its sunshine and its pleasantness. So it is wise not to abide too long in any place, however it take your fancy, lest you risk disillusion of finding the world is much the same the world over, and the earthly paradise you have discovered is no paradise at all. I thought I had found my paradise once in a charming old and picturesque village far west, where all seemed so peaceful and blest; but I stayed