pass out of London; here they would stop and refresh themselves at the "Tabard," the "White Hart," and their compeers.... What now remains of these? The "Tabard," rebuilt in Charles II.'s time, and for long the finest old house of its kind in London, was burnt down in 1873; it now only exists in its name, still flaunted bravely above a commonplace modern inn. The "Queen's Head," the "White Hart," the "King's Head," exist now only as hideous railway-yards or equally hideous modern edifices; the only remaining relic of them all is the "George" Inn, where a solitary fragment, a long block of ancient buildings, with picturesque, sloping, dormer roofs, and balustraded wooden galleries, is yet, by the mercy of the Great Northern Railway Company, spared to us, to tell of its former glories. The present hosts of the "George,"--two ladies,--are pleasant, hospitable people, and their small, dark, panelled rooms are clean and comfortable. They seem, however, to entertain a mild feeling of boredom for the constant accession of reverent pilgrims who flock annually to their shrine. "And it's only for the last few years," the younger lady remarks, somewhat sadly, "only since the last inn, the 'Queen's Head,' you know was pulled down, that so many people have come. A great many Americans ... oh, I suppose they come out of curiosity, like; one can't blame 'em. Do people stay here in the summer? Yes, a good few--some business men, but mostly artists and tourists; it's just curiosity. Then, it's, 'Would you mind if I take a photograph?' or 'Have I your leave to sit in the yard and sketch?' Do I let them do it?... oh, yes" (with a sigh), "it doesn't matter to me. I suppose they may be going to put it in some book or some article; but it's nothing to me.... I never read the article!" [Illustration: _Cricket in the Street. The lost Ball._] If this lady be not a cynic, she at any rate embodies a great deal of the philosophy of life! What the other Inns were like, can be more or less seen from this small portion of one. They have mostly vanished with the march of progress of recent years, for fifty years ago Dickens could still write: "In the Borough there still remain some half-dozen old inns which have preserved their external features unchanged. Great rambling queer old places, with galleries and passages and staircases wide enough and antiquated enough to furnish materials for a hundred ghost stories."