At the queer little village of Yatton Keynell, as odd and uncouth as its name, we found another of the melancholy instances so common in England of the degeneration of a fine manor into a slovenly farm tenement. We drove into the ill-kept farmyard and picked our way carefully through the debris to the front entrance, a solid oaken door under a curious little porch. The house is a good example of the substantial mansion of the old-time English squire, and though still quite extensive, is of only half its original size. It has a solid oak staircase and many touches of its old-time beauty remain. While it has no history or tradition, it is worthy a visit from anyone interested in English domestic architecture and in a rather melancholy phase of social conditions. A combe, in west of England parlance, is a deep, ravinelike valley. Such a description certainly fits the site of Castle Combe, surely one of the loveliest villages in Wiltshire, or all of England, for that matter. We carefully descended a steep, narrow road winding through the trees that cover the sharply rising hillsides, and paused before the queer old market cross of the little town. Nowhere did we find a more perfect and secluded gem of rural England. The market cross, whose quadrangular roof of tile, with a tall slender shaft rising from the center, is supported on four heavy stone pillars, looks as if it had scarce been touched in the four hundred years during which it has weathered sun and rain. Near by is the solid little church with pinnacled and embattled tower, still more ancient. Along shady lanes leading from the market place are cozy thatched cottages, bright with climbing roses and ivy, and others of gray stone seem quite as bleak as the cross itself. Nothing could be more picturesque than the gateway to the adjoining park--the thatched roof of the lodgekeeper's house sagging from the weight of several centuries. On either side of the village rise the steep, heavily wooded hills and from the foot of the glen comes up the murmur of the stream. Verily, there is an unknown England--the guide-books have nothing of Castle Combe, and unless the wayfarer comes upon it like ourselves, he will miss one of the most charming bits of old-world life in the Kingdom. And it is all unconscious of its charm; excepting an occasional incursion of English trippers, visitors are few. [Illustration: CASTLE COMBE VILLAGE, WILTSHIRE.] The road out of the valley runs along the wooded glen, by the swift stream just below, until a sharp rise brings us to the up-lands, where we enter the main Bath road. And we are glad that the close of our day's wanderings finds us so close to Bath, for we may be sure of comfort at the Empire--though we may expect to pay for it--and we have stopped here often enough to form the acquaintance so helpful to one in the average English hotel. Bath is in Somerset, but the next morning we recross the border and resume our pilgrimage in Wiltshire.