If colds and consumptions are frequent in England, it is more to be attributed to the habits of the people than the climate. They have a peculiar predilection for walks on the wet grass; and in every public room there are open windows, so that it is hardly possible to bear the drafts. Even when they are shut the wind whistles through them; for they are seldom substantial, and never double. The climate too, however favourable to vegetation, is dreadful for men. This morning at nine o'clock, I rode out on a hired horse, in beautiful weather and a cloudless sky, and before I had been out an hour the most soaking rain wetted me through and through. At last I reached the village, where, in despair at not finding even a gate-way under which to take shelter, I sprang from my horse, and seeing a cottage door open, went in, and found two old women cooking something over a fire. In England, everything domestic is held so sacred and inviolable, that a man who enters a room without having cautiously announced himself and begged pardon, instantly excites alarm and displeasure. Although the cause of my intrusion ran in pretty obvious streams from my hat and clothes, I was not very cordially received by the old ladies. But what was the rage and horror of my hostesses 'malgré elles,' when my steed, whose sagacity would have done honour to Nestor himself, walked in at the door, and before anything could be done to stop him, took his station in the most quiet and decorous manner before the chimney-piece, and with a look of sly, affected stupidity, began to dry his dripping ears at the fire. I thought the women would have died of rage, and I of laughing. I had such compassion for my poor comrade in misfortune, that I did not like to turn him out by force; and so,--they scolding and storming, I trying to appease them with gentle words, and the more approved eloquence of other silver sounds,--we staid, half by force, half by entreaty, till the storm was a little over, and we were a little dried. The drying, however, was of small avail; for, at the entrance to the romantic Forge Valley, storm and rain began afresh. I surrendered myself to my fate, though wholly without defence, and consoled myself with the beauties of the surrounding spot,--a deep, narrow valley, clothed with rich wood, through which a rapid, foaming streamlet took its way. By the side of the brook was a good road. I remarked a pretty and simple way of enclosing a spring between two large blocks of stones set upright, and a third laid across. Through this rude portal the water gushed forth, and bounded on its course.