certainly, English country life seemed to me the most advantageous thing in the world: on these terms one would gladly put up with a little dulness. When I reflected that there were thousands of people dwelling in brownstone houses in numbered streets in New York who were at as great a cost to make a reputable appearance in those harsh conditions as some of the occupants of the grassy estates of which I had a glimpse, the privileges of the latter class appeared delightfully cheap. There was one place in particular of which I said to myself that if I had the money to buy it, I would simply walk up to the owner and pour the sum in sovereigns into his hat. I saw this place, unfortunately, to small advantage: I saw it in the rain. But I am rather glad that fine weather did not meddle with the affair, for I think that in this case the irritation of envy would have been really too acute. It was a rainy Sunday, and the rain was serious. I had been in the house all day, for the weather can best be described by my saying that it had been deemed an exoneration from church-going. But in the afternoon, the prospective interval between lunch and tea assuming formidable proportions, my host took me out to walk, and in the course of our walk he led me into a park which he described as "the paradise of a small English country gentleman." Well it might be: I have never seen such a collection of oaks. They were of high antiquity and magnificent girth and stature: they were strewn over the grassy levels in extraordinary profusion, and scattered upon and down the slopes in a fashion than which I have seen nothing more charming since I last looked at the chestnut trees on the banks of the Lake of Como. It appears that the place was not very vast, but I was unable to perceive its limits. Shortly before we turned into the park the rain had renewed itself, so that we were awkwardly wet and muddy; but, being near the house, my companion proposed to leave his card in a neighborly way. The house was most agreeable: it stood on a kind of terrace in the midst of a lawn and garden, and the terrace looked down on one of the handsomest rivers in England, and across to those blue undulations of which I have already spoken. On the terrace also was a piece of ornamental water, and there was a small iron paling to divide the lawn from the park. All this I beheld in the rain. My companion gave his card to the butler, with the observation that we were too much bespattered to come in; and we turned away to complete our circuit. As we turned away I became acutely conscious of what I should have been tempted to call the cruelty of this proceeding. My imagination gauged the whole position. It was a Sunday afternoon, and it was raining. The house was charming, the terrace delightful, the oaks magnificent, the view most interesting. But the whole thing was--not to repeat the epithet "dull," of which just now I made too gross a use--the whole thing was quiet. In the