I must not pass away from the subject of housekeeping without saying something about the extraordinary cheapness of meat, and especially of game, at this period. In the Renishaw “house-book” for 1671, a price is set against all the articles supplied from the farm or bought in the village. A veal is valued at ten to twelve shillings, a mutton at six to ten, a lamb at five to six, a beef at £3 15s. to £4 4s., a porket at ten to eleven shillings, and pigs at from 1s. 3d. to 1s. 6d. each. Chickens could be had for threepence and fourpence, pullets at sixpence, ducks at fourpence to eightpence, geese, capons, and turkeys at a shilling, pigeons at elevenpence or one shilling a dozen, and rabbits at sixpence to 1s. 2d. a couple. Partridges and teal were eightpence a brace, woodcock eightpence to a shilling, wild ducks a shilling, plovers fourpence to sixpence, and snipe fourpence. Cheeses were eightpence to tenpence each, and butter was fourpence a pound. Household loaves, not of white bread, were a shilling each, and flour for manchet or for the kitchen 1s. 3d. a peck. [Illustration: Acquaintances Meeting in London.] According to Macaulay, not one gentleman in a hundred travelled once in seven years beyond the nearest market town; but the truth is that the country squires were often upon the road, and few who lived within five days’ journey of London failed to visit it occasionally. In Derbyshire, from the end of November until the beginning of April, the highways were impassable for wheels and very unpleasant for horsemen, and even April is said in one of these letters to be “too soon, for the ways will be bad.” Mr. Sitwell rode up to London every spring, usually in the last-named month or in May, and he sometimes visited it a second time in August. His plans were laid a month or six weeks in advance, and a week or ten days before starting a box or trunk of clothes was sent on by carrier. He left Renishaw at seven o’clock in the morning, attired in a riding suit, top boots, a horseman’s cloak, and a “mounteroe,” or Spanish travelling cap, of velvet. Pistols were borne in the holsters, for Sherwood was a noted haunt of highwaymen, and behind him rode a footman in livery, carrying his portmantle (it contained clean linen, a nightdress, nightcap, and change of clothes) and hatcase upon the saddle. The first night was spent at Nottingham, after a ride of thirty miles through the forest; the second at Harborough (twenty-eight miles); the third at Dunstable (thirty-five miles); the fourth in London (thirty miles). The charges incurred by himself, his man and horses, in riding up, amounted on one occasion to £1 13s. 6d., and in returning to £1 1s. 6d., and one horse was killed in the journey. In London, Mr. Sitwell frequented the “Greyhound” Inn in Holborn, next door to “Furnival’s” Inn, and there he paid about eight shillings and fourpence a week for chamber rent and washing, and eighteen shillings and eightpence for hay and corn for his horses. Food