there too long, for on getting to know the quiet country folk I too quickly discovered they had their grievances one against the other, just as much as those people who live in less desirable spots; these grievances mostly seemed paltry to me who had no part in them, but they were not to be got over. Yes, I had stayed there too long. Three weeks had I stayed, so charmed was I with the place and its cosy old inn: I had better have stayed for only three days, and retained my first dream of perfection. Next we came to the adjoining villages of Corhampton and Meon Stoke; I took them for one, but I learnt that the little river Meon divides them and that they really are two distinct places. On each side of the river, almost within a stone's throw of each other, their ancient churches stand. Two places of worship where one might suffice--surely a waste of Christian energy! How much energy is often wasted in country churches! A Sussex parson once told me that sometimes he had to preach and the choir had to sing to three old women and an umbrella! Both Corhampton and Meon Stoke are lovely villages in a lovely spot enclosed by wooded hills; you might travel for many a day and many a mile before coming to so fair a corner of the land. It is as fair as wooded hills, gently gliding river, with a droning old mill by its side, green meadows, pretty cottages gracefully yet accidentally grouped, and two grey, quaint, and ancient churches can make it. Meon Stoke church with its odd black wooden bell-turret makes a pretty picture standing by the side of the river where it broadens out into a pool. Corhampton church stands on a little knoll almost opposite, and is small and most unpretending, but of much interest, being Saxon, though since those far-away Saxon times it has suffered alteration. Now Saxon churches are rare in the land, notwithstanding that this was the second we had come upon in out-of-the-way places during the journey. Its walls still show the long-and-short Saxon stone-work, and there is a good example of a Saxon doorway on the north side, unfortunately built up. There is to me little doubt that its walls are the original ones, though patched here and there, and though later windows have been inserted in them, so that the building remains the same size and form as when first erected, long centuries past. In the churchyard is a large yew-tree undoubtedly ancient, but whether it is "as old as the building itself and the oldest in the country," as a parishioner asserted it was, I could scarcely believe; perhaps he did not realise the age of the church. I grant that the tree likely flourished in the days of Queen Bess, probably was old even then, and that takes one back a good while. How many churchyards boast of having the biggest and oldest yew-tree in the land? I have quite lost count of them, and of the "smallest church in England" I have seen not a few. Standing at one side of the porch we noticed the original altar-stone with five