The weather was fine, the air was balmy; many people were out. Chester and his companion strolled about the walks and across the velvety stretches of grass. They watched for a time, a "gentlemanly game of cricket," but it was too slow altogether for the Americans. It was well towards sundown when the two young men took a car back to Islington. "Another day we'll see Newsham Park, and the country around Knotty Ash way. Then again, there is some beautiful country up the Mersey and across to Birkenhead." The visitor was grateful for these offers. That evening Chester addressed some post-cards to his few friends in Chicago, one to Hugh Elston, one to Elder Malby in London, and one to Lucy May Strong, Kildare Villa, Cork, Ireland. He lingered somewhat over this latter, lost somewhat in wonder at recent events. Was not this ocean trip and the Irish experience a dream? The noise and smoke about him were surely that of Chicago, and he was sitting in his room there in his normal condition of homelessness and friendlessness? Had he not that day been out with an elder from the Chicago Church office to Lincoln Park and the lakeside? Surely Lucy and the minister, and Kildare Villa and Blarney were figments of a pleasant dream! Chester walked back and forth in the small room. He stopped before a dingy map of Great Britain on the wall. His finger touched Ireland, moved southward, and stopped at Cork. Yes; there _was_ such a place, any way, so there must be Shandon Bells and the Blarney Stone, and a rustic seat under the trees at Blarney Castle. Well, if all else under the sun were imaginary, that hour of bliss at Blarney when Chester told Lucy he loved her, and Lucy told Chester the same sweet words--that was real. He would live in that reality, for it far surpassed his dreams. Chester looked again at the post-card he had addressed to Kildare Villa, placed it aside, and wrote in its place a long letter. CHAPTER X. Twenty miles out of London. The sun is shining, and the train glides along by green fields, hedges of hawthorn, and blossoming trees. England looks to be the huge, well-cared-for farm of a very rich man. This may be explained by the fact that England is an old country, having been plowed and planted and harrowed for close on to a thousand years before America was discovered. This long period of cultivation gives the country-side a mellowness and well-groomed look. The vaporous sunlight softens all the outlines, hides the harsh features, and gives the landscape its dreamy, far-away, misty loveliness. There seems to be no angles in the scene; field melts into field, and hedge into hedge, with here and there a ribbon of a road which seems to join them rather than to separate them. The houses are of brick or of stone, many partly hidden under the climbing ivy or roses.