Swindon, the first town we encounter after passing the border, is an up-to-date city of fifty thousand people and the newness everywhere apparent, the asphalt pavement and the numerous tram lines impress one with its similarity to live American towns. We learn that it is practically a creation of the Great Western Railway, whose shops give employment to a large proportion of the population. Clearly, there is nothing for us in Swindon and we hasten on to Chippenham, which has the traditions which Swindon so wofully lacks. It is a staid old town of six thousand and was important in Saxon times, having frequent mention in the chronicles of Alfred's wars with the Danes. Strange indeed the mutations of time--strange it seems that the now decadent and negligible Denmark once sent her "fair-haired despots of the sea" into this remote section of the present mistress of the seas. The town is full of odd old houses and it is the center of one of the most interesting spots in England, as I hope to be able to show. But its hotel would hardly invite a long sojourn; we stop for luncheon at the Angel, and are placed at a large table with several rather red-faced gentlemen who discuss horses and hunting dogs as vigorously as a lively onslaught on the host's vintage and good cheer permits. Lacock is only four miles away and they tell us that we should see the abbey; but they do not tell us that the village itself is worth a day's journey and that the abbey is only secondary. They do not tell us this, because no one about Lacock knows it. The utter unconsciousness and genuineness of the village is not its least charm. Lacock never dreams of being a show place or tourist resort; but despite its unconsciousness, anyone who has seen England as we have seen it will know that Lacock is not easily matched for its wealth of old stone and timber houses and its quaint, genuine antiquity. It is perhaps a trifle severe and its picturesqueness is of a melancholy and somber kind--thatched roofs are few, ivy-clad walls and flower gardens are wanting; there is little color save an occasional red roof to relieve the all-pervading gray monotone. Its timbered houses are not the imitations one sees so often, even in England, or the modernized old buildings shining in black and white paint, but the genuine article, with weathered oak timbers and lichen-covered brick. There are many projecting upper stories and sharp gables with casement windows of diamond panes set in rusty iron frames. The Lacock of today is truly a voice from the past. It must have been practically the same two or three hundred years ago. Its houses, its streets, its church and its very atmosphere carry one back to the England of Shakespeare.