Leaving Coate we soon reached the erst quiet little town of Swindon; it is no longer quiet or little, but looms large and ugly--seen from afar a blot on the fair landscape; the railway has made it prosperous and its name, once unknown to the outer world, "as familiar as a household word." Swindon does not appeal to the traveller who, like the famous Dr. Syntax, fares forth "in search of the picturesque." Of old, I have been told, it was a pleasant spot. We were fortunate enough to simply touch the edge of the bustling town and to get again on to an open country road, careless as to where it might lead; it might go to anywhere so long as we escaped smoky Swindon with its big works, tram-lines, and rows of mean buildings over which the smoke, in the still air, hung like a pall. That is the price it has to pay for its prosperity. Our road took us in a few miles to Wootton Bassett, a small, sleepy, clean market-town set high up on a hill, unprogressive yet not dull, and it greeted us with an air of restfulness and ancientness. It is a good road that takes you to a pleasant place. I was glad to discover Wootton Bassett, a long one-streeted town, and in the centre of its broad sunny street stands its quaint half-timber market-hall upheld by stone pillars, with its ancient stocks preserved in the covered space below. Why will they not build such useful and eye-pleasing structures to-day? This quaint old market-hall, so picturesquely prominent, gives a character to the whole place. I could not imagine Wootton Bassett without its market-hall any more than I could imagine a cathedral city without its cathedral. It seemed the centre of attraction of the little town, for around it were gathered many of its inhabitants, lazing, smoking, and gossiping; the wonder was how they could afford to idle time so, they hardly looked like men of independent means! Now when I desired to take a photograph of the building they, of one accord, stood up all in a formal row, like soldiers on parade, so as to effectually spoil my proposed photograph as a picture. If the good people had only been content not to have minded me, and stayed as they were naturally grouped, they would even have been of pictorial service; but standing each one stiffly facing the camera, the case was hopeless. Why will people always pose so "to be took," with no expectation of seeing "their pictures"? They provoked me almost into being angry, for I so desired to obtain a pleasing photograph of the quaint old structure. Still, I made a sketch of it, conveniently ignoring the figures; but it took me a good half-hour or more to make the sketch, and the photograph would only have needed a minute to take and been faithful to the minutest detail. Now it chanced that I was hungry, and a hungry man is not a good workman. I made a mistake; I ought to have satisfied my hunger and then made my sketch, but somehow at the moment I did not think of so simple a thing. Then I sought an inn, for I had forgotten