"Improvement" has been direfully at work since first we visited this little village and drank of the cool waters of "St. Lawrence's Well." The white, well-kept road is more level than the old picturesque path; instead of ivied cottages there are now shining villas with green blinds, walls for hedgerows, and, worst of all, the gushing spring flows somewhere in an inclosure to which there seems no access. It is a pity to have thus modernised so rustic and lovely a spot. But the flowers are still there, perfuming the air; and the myrtles and the fuchsias are not shrubs, but trees, and the luxuriance of southern climes surrounds us. As we walk along we speculate on the convulsions of nature that have prepared for us this little paradise. The undulating ground at our feet is evidently formed of vast masses of chalk and clay, which, at former periods, have broken bodily from the face of the cliff, slipped forward, and sunk down. The surface, disintegrated by aqueous and atmospheric action, has formed a kind of irregular terrace, the soil of which is most favourable to vegetation. The ground is now firm, the process of disintegration from above seems almost arrested; but there are even yet memories of landslips on a large scale, of which the traces are still visible. [Illustration: 0229] There is one walk in the island which no tolerable pedestrian should omit--that from Newport to Freshwater, or Alum Bay. Leaving the main road at Carisbrooke, a footpath leads upwards through fields richly cultivated and gay with wild flowers. The open down which forms the backbone of the island is soon reached. Keeping along the ridge the tourist will for some miles enjoy a scene almost unique in its beauty. The soft delicate curves and undulations which characterise the chalk downs, and which the unobservant traveller so often overlooks, may be seen in perfection. Nestling in many a sheltered nook are farm-houses, hamlets, and churches, embosomed in trees. Patches of fern, gorse, and heather diversify the landscape. And far below, on either side, is the sea--on the right hand the Solent, on the left the English Channel. After a while Freshwater comes into view, with its | line of cliffs rising sheer from the waves, and about half-a-mile inland the sheltered nook which has been made a classic spot as the home of the Poet Laureate. His description of it will be familiar to many readers. "Where, far from smoke and noise of town, I watch the twilight falling brown All round a careless ordered garden. Close to the ridge of a noble down. You'll have no scandal while you dine, But honest talk and wholesome wine, And only hear the magpie gossip Garrulous under a roof of pine. For groves of pine on either hand, To break the blast of winter, stand; And further on, the hoary Channel Tumbles a breaker on chalk and sand." A couple of miles more and we reach Alum Bay and the Needles, spoken of on a preceding page.