House-Hunting in the Country

I

I FELT from the start that my wife was going to have her own way; it was the old story of the compromise on linen sheets. But when we decided to carry our explorations into the country I insisted that the job should be done thoroughly. For years I had done a certain amount of house-hunting in the pages of Country Life, but this was to be a different matter. It’s one thing to turn the advertising pages of a wellprinted, well-illustrated magazine, but it’s quite another to go scooting all over England upon the more or less prejudiced suggestion of an estate agent. House-hunting in a magazine is gently stimulating and at the same time restful. Lighting a cigar, you say to yourself: ‘This is going to be my busy day,’whereupon you throw yourself into an easy-chair and listlessly turn the pages until you come upon something like this, under a fascinating picture: —

FOR SALE: Freehold. Leweston Manor, Dorset. Some 1083 Acres, Mainly Pasture, Considerable Woodland, and Beautiful Timbered Park. The Estate comprises the ENTIRE PARISH OF LEWESTON, of which the owner is Lay Rector, with a most attractive Private Chapel (about 1600 A.D., old oak, etc.) near to the House. Owner is also LORD OF THE MANOR. Fine Georgian House, facing due south, about 400 Ft. above Sea Level. Three handsome reception rooms (en suite), two or three others, billiard room, about 20 principal bed and dressing and five bathrooms, excellent servants’ accommodation and offices. Most efficient central heating. Entirely modern drainage (certified annually) and automatic supply of spring water. HUNTING practically every day. GOOD SHOOTING, might be largely increased. POLO AND GOLF NEAR.

One muses to one’s self. That sounds pretty good. The owner automatically becomes a lay rector. No examinations into qualifications or anything. Carries with it the right to preach, no doubt; and I ’ll be blistered if I cannot preach about as well as any rector I have ever heard discourse from a Church of England pulpit. And I have spent more money on Bibles than all the preachers you and I know put together. I wonder, shall I be called on to marry anybody? I know the rules of that game, too. Does not the ‘Table of Kindred and Affinity,’ ‘wherein whoever are related are forbidden in Scripture to marry together,’ hang, suitably framed, in our guest chamber at home, and are these rules not rigorously enforced ? It saves a lot of trouble for a man to be told plainly that he may not marry his grandmother, and a woman that it is useless for her to cast longing eyes upon her daughter’s daughter’s husband; no such goings-on in our house: we must draw the line somewhere.

‘Hunting practically every day.’ That sounds fine: one’s ecclesiastical duties done, one slips off one’s cassock, and lo! one is in pink. One flings one’s self upon one’s horse and gallops off to the meet, careless that he arrives upon a tired animal, for has not his man, several hours before, gone on with a led horse which shall be quite fresh at the moment of starting? ‘Good shooting,’ too, which ‘might be largely increased.’ ‘Polo and golf near.’ Golf is a bit too sedentary for me, but polo I love. No fishing, I observe, but one can’t have everything; I suppose one could lease a fiord in Norway or somewhere. But, on the whole, I don’t think the place will do. It’s too big — too much responsibility; something smaller would suit me better. And turning the pages further one comes across this, also under a charming picture: —

BETWEEN CHIDDINGFOLD & HASLEMERE. A unique Old-World Cottage Residence, A.D. 1453, charmingly situated and containing Hall, Drawing Room, Dining Room, Seven Bedrooms. Acetylene Gas. Pretty Gardens of Two-and-a-Half Acres. Fine View.

Just the thing, but that it lacks every convenience. There are no bathrooms, no hot water ‘laid on,’ no heating of any kind; merely an old, a very old house, — damp as a vault, doubtless, — and a view. I like the situation: I would not be too far from my friend Graham Robertson; but, on the whole, I think I’d better look elsewhere. Thus passes a very pleasant morning, without expense or fatigue or regret upon a hasty or labored decision. This, I say, is house-hunting of a kind, but one gets nowhere. We were in England to decide upon a home. We must be up and doing.

It was quite obvious that if we were to accomplish anything we could not depend upon trains; we must have a motor. The question was, should we buy or hire? We decided to hire; and I said to myself, ‘Our comfort largely depends upon having a good car and a good chauffeur.’ After meditation I decided to call upon the representative of an excellent car, tell him what I wanted, and ask his advice. This I did, and I had the good fortune to hear of a garage that had a ‘fleet’ of just such cars as I wanted; it was in the north of London, but it was ‘on the telephone’: all I had to do was to call up. But somehow my suspicions were aroused. It would be well to investigate; so, taking a taxi, I rode until I noticed with alarm that the clock was pointing to three shillings, about which time I was set down before a garage in which were two old cars, one a tiny runabout, the other such a car as I wanted, but of prehistoric pattern. Had my taxidriver made a mistake? No, the address was quite right; this was the ‘fleet.’

Gently cursing the man who had so low an opinion of my intelligence as to suppose that I would hire a car for a month without looking at it, I entered another taxi, saying, ‘Piccadilly Circus,’ knowing that I could mature another plan before I got there. Then it occurred to me to seek information at the Royal Automobile Club. So I changed my instructions, and in half an hour entered that great institution in Pall Mall. Here I might have received good advice had I gone to the proper department, but I got to the wrong desk with my troubles, which I confided to a man who seemed deeply interested. ‘Quite so, quite so,’ he said, ‘I know a man who has a fleet of cars of just the kind you want. Wait a moment. I ’ll get him on the telephone.’ In a few moments he returned, saying that he had his friend and that I could talk to him on the telephone; that I could depend upon anything his friend might tell me. ‘Where is he?’

I inquired. Some distance away, I was told, but I could talk to him on the telephone; he had a fine fleet — I did not like the word ‘fleet.’ ‘What is your friend’s name and what is his address?’ ‘Newton is his name, and his address — but you can talk to him on the telephone.’ ‘No, thank you very much,’ I replied; ‘tell Mr. Newton to wait until I call upon him.’

Then I gave myself an illustration of what advertising men call the ‘pulling power of the printed word.’ I remembered that I had read — I don’t know when or where — that Harrod’s in Kensington had a motor-hire department, and I did what I should have done in the first place: I went to Harrod’s— who also had a ‘fleet’ of cars, but this time a fleet in being — and picked out a fine Armstrong-Siddeley car, and secured the services of an excellent chauffeur, named Percival. He turned out to be, in fact, Maxine Elliott’s chauffeur; that lady being on the continent for two or three months, her man was at a loose end and had taken a job with Harrod’s. During all of our journeys, and we made many in all directions, every incident was a pleasant one. We found our Percival to be prompt and polite, a careful driver, and resourceful in emergency. Once something happened to the intestines of our car; an immediate operation proved to be necessary, and it was performed very successfully upon the roadside. Meantime we had accepted a lift of a mile or so to The Hotel, in Church Stretton, intending to stop there long enough for a cup of tea, but we found the hotel so excellent that we decided to spend the night. Church Stretton is a town of one street, several miles long. The church from which it takes its name is not important, but in it is a tablet in memory of the author of Jessica’s First Prayer. This book fifty years ago had a vogue which would not be understood to-day. My well-worn copy bears an affectionate inscription, and an appalling date: 1869!

II

Theoretically, I am an experienced horseman. I delight in hunting; I ride straight; indeed, I am considered by some a reckless rider; a steep bank on which grows a hedge with a deep, wide ditch on the far side I regard as an invitation not to be declined. I love the music of the hounds, and the view halloo of the huntsman, and I love a dinner at which all the men are in pink and the ladies — well, bless them, however gowned. But actually I have never been on a horse’s back; and at such a dinner, in a black swallowtail coat, I should feel like a Presbyterian in his predestined flames. Of what good to me, then, is my fine collection of sporting books? By them I deceive no one, myself least of all. ‘So,’ as Anita Loos says, when I decided to become an English country gentleman, I made up my mind not to affect the sportsman, but rather to take up the ecclesiastical line, for which my age and figure are much better suited. I would be seen walking slowly, as if in deep meditation, in a cathedral close: my conversation would be of Bibles and of prayer books. Such knowledge, I felt, could not go unrecognized. I had no wish to become a curate, one whose idea of dissipation would consist in passing cucumber sandwiches and tea to old ladies; and my modesty would, of course, prevent my accepting the Bishopric, but with my war record I thought that I might become a minor canon. I had no idea of the duties of a minor canon, but I was not too old to learn.

Such, in general, were my views when I received one morning in my mail a letter from an estate agent telling of a charming old-world mansion situated not far from Bishops Stortford. It read delightfully: ‘A dignified mansion on the east side of a hill facing the rising sun; the oldest part dates from 1728.’ This singularly attractive freehold was to be sold publicly upon a certain date, unless previously disposed of by private treaty, which seemed altogether likely. The house stood in seventeen acres of ground; the oaks were famous; more land could be had if desired. The house contained a lounge hall, three spacious reception rooms, a study, five bedrooms, two dressing rooms, two bathrooms, a servants’ hall, and good offices; electric light, company’s water, central heating, stabling, garage, and outbuildings. The grounds included an old-world garden, a tennis lawn, walled kitchen garden, glasshouses, rookery, and paddock. Such a property would not go begging. Getting a map, I learned that Bishops Stortford was just halfway between London and Cambridge: we must be on our way. Percival was called and responded; we were soon off on our journey.

It is not an easy thing to get out of London in a motor: on and on we went, and were still in London, for the town stretches away interminably to the north, as we were subsequently to find that it does in every other direction. As we were in no special hurry, we stopped in Edmonton to look at the tiny cottage which was Charles Lamb’s last home, and from the house we went to the churchyard in which he and his sister Mary lie buried. When we first visited Lamb’s grave, many years ago, we found it with some difficulty, overgrown with grass and weeds, but it is now cared for, as I happen to know, by E. V. Lucas, his best biographer, and a well-worn path leads to the spot.

The landscape to the north of London is flat and ugly, getting flatter and uglier as one leaves the city behind him, and we were just a little chilled toward Bishops Stortford before we got there. The house was impossible; there was no bishop, no cathedral, none of the ecclesiastical plant which the name suggested — no anything. The town was a gift from the Conqueror to the Bishop of London, and if you ask me, I don’t think it was by any means his best one. The church is of no interest whatever, and the fact that Cecil Rhodes was baptized in it was only mildly exciting.

The question then arose, should we go back to London or on to Cambridge? We decided in favor of Cambridge, and an hour later we were at The Bull. And here and now I protest at the miserable accommodation afforded by the average English provincial hotel, especially those long-established hostelries which make capital of their tradition. The Bull at Cambridge, The Mitre at Oxford, and Harker’s at York, I shall not willingly visit again. One is much better served at the University Arms, Tne Randolph, and the Station Hotel, respectively, in the towns named; but of all the country hotels in England the best is Lygon Arms at Broadway. But the discomfort of The Bull vanished when, after sending our car to the garage, we began to ramble through the streets of Cambridge. How lovely it is! It has, of course, no ‘High,’ like Oxford, but then, Oxford has no ‘Backs,’ like Cambridge; meaning thereby those lovely lawns that slope so gently down to the river. It would be invidious to compare the welcome I have received from the secretaries of the Oxford and of the Cambridge Press; both are fine lads, excellent scholars, and determined Johnsonians, and if I have been delightfully entertained by a fine group of men at Pembroke College, Cambridge, have I not done my best to entertain a similar group at Pembroke College, Oxford?

But lovely as is the city on the River Cam, we soon saw that Cambridgeshire was too flat and damp for us. It was all under water once, and, if the sea ever rose a few inches, might be again. Having a car at our disposal, we determined to visit Holkham Hall in Norfolk, the seat of the Earl of Leicester. Twenty years or more ago, John Lane published a book in two sumptuous volumes, called Coke (pronounced ‘Cook’) of Norfolk and HisFriends. I would advise my readers, if I have any, to throw aside this paper and get a copy of the book from a library and read it: I say ‘library,’ for it has long been out of print, and I won’t lend mine under any circumstances.

We had no idea of leasing Holkham: it is, indeed, one of the largest and finest Palladian residences in England; we had long wanted to see it and were glad of a good excuse to make the excursion. To Holkham, then, we proceeded, stopping for lunch at King’s Lynn, where there is much to be seen, but the pleasantest sight was two old friends lunching at the Duke’s Head, who were prevailed upon to join us on our expedition. The fates were propitious: on our arrival at the outer park gates, several miles from the house, we found that a lawn party for some charity was in progress, and that by the expenditure of a few shillings everything could be seen. What spacious lives those old birds lived a hundred and fifty years ago! Great wide avenues of old oak trees, several miles long, radiated from the great mansion in four directions; very artificial they must once have been, but they are part of the landscape now and appear to have always been of it. The great Coke, Thomas William, was in his day the richest commoner in England; he was the father of intensive farming, and made not alone two blades of grass grow where only one grew before, but two, or more, of everything, including cattle, and hogs, and sheep. For more than forty years the sheep-shearings at Holkham were famous. On one occasion the host entertained eighty house guests, seven hundred people sat down for dinner, and several thousand farmers were given as much as they could eat and drink — and what an English yeoman could eat and drink, a century and a half ago, was a-plenty. Coke was as famous for his hospitality as for his cattle and his crops.

We were anxious to see the house, with its famous picture gallery, and especially the library, which contains many thousands of volumes the world will not willingly let live, and we were conducted from one part to another by the very charming daughter-in-law of the present Earl, the Honorable Mrs. Arthur Young. When life is tuned to such a pitch as it once was at Holkham, it seems a pity that it cannot last forever; but sic transit gloria mundi. The great days at Holkham are a thing of the past — and they are never to return.

III

As we left The Bull the next morning, the porter — or was it ‘Boots’? — remarked, ‘The weather is looking down, but I don’t think it will fall.’ But fall it did, and the rain made the rather gloomy Norman Cathedral of Peterborough more austere than usual; so, after an indifferent lunch, we pushed on to Melton Mowbray. It seems rather silly to speak of a church in a town where nothing matters but fox-hunting, but I am bound to observe that St. Mary’s in Melton Mowbray is one of the finest parish churches in England. Nothing is duller than an empty theatre unless it be such a town out of season, in a pouring rain; even the knowledge that Melton gives its name to a cloth and is famous for pork pies and Stilton cheese does not redeem it. I had thought at one time of taking a hunting box at Melton, but somehow when I got there I did not feel quite up to it. I made a note, however, to discuss this matter with my friend Harry Worcester Smith when I got home. I did n’t much like the idea of bringing all my horses and hounds over unless I knew how I should be received. The Prince of Wales monopolizes things too entirely at Melton; yet it is hardly to be wondered at: it’s a great title, no matter upon whom it is fastened.

From Melton we went on to York, and it was while we were drinking tea with two very delightful old ladies, whose family had lived from time immemorial in a charming old house in the precincts of the Minster, that we decided to look no further but to settle forever in York. We had found just what we wanted: a fine mansion which had once been the residence of Laurence Sterne’s ‘rich and opulent’ uncle when he was Precentor of the Cathedral, what time Horace Walpole’s friend Blackburne, ‘the jolly old Archbishop of York,’ kept court there. If the Archbishop was as ‘gay and immoral’ as he was said to be, quite naturally he would see nothing very shocking in the conduct of a dissipated young clergyman who was later to cut a distinguished figure in the world as an author. So Sterne had lived in this very house with his uncle! We liked the idea: it would do for us; but we had decided without our host — the ladies had no idea of moving; the very idea was as shocking to them as the thought of another war. So we moved on.

But before leaving the neighborhood we thought we would have a look at the house a few miles away in the Coxwold hills in which Sterne lived when he wrote Tristram and A Sentimental Journey. So, the next day being Sunday, we motored out to the little church of St. Michael and made the acquaintance of the rector, or incumbent, or whatever he was, and with him strolled up the hill to Shandy Hall, where we were welcomed by the farmer who lived in the house, who showed us Sterne’s study, the tiny room in which the great books were written, and I thought of his ‘most religious way of beginning a book’: I write the first sentence — and trust to Almighty God for the second.’ And that is the way literature is made — sometimes.

The idea of looking for a house farther from London than York never occurred to us; but, being in active mood, we went on to Edinburgh, crossed over to Glasgow, and came down through the Lakes and the Dukeries. The North of England is famous for its great manufacturing towns, which everyone knows, at least by name; but — and this is not so well known — it is also famous for its great estates. ‘ What should they know of England who only England know?’ sang Kipling, hymning the Empire. The same might be said of those who know England only from a railway train: they never see the baronial halls, the splendid mansions for which England is famous; nor indeed does one see many of them from a motor, but ever and again the highway skirts a wall, or a hedge and a ditch and a fence, and sooner or later one comes upon a pair of highly wrought park gates, and perhaps, at the end of a vista of half a mile or more, catches a glimpse of one of those stately homes which have been for centuries, it may be, the principal seat of some distinguished family. But, seeing them, one cannot escape the feeling that what once was the strength of England is now her weakness. Life on the great landed estates must once have been magnificent, but it is so no longer. How many such estates are there? I have no idea, — an immense number, — but they are done for. No longer can a man surround himself with miles of stone wall, pierced here and there with entrances, scaled in magnificence to the use for which they were intended, and live without reference to the wants of his fellows. From time immemorial England has specialized in fences of every kind and character; high brick or stone walls, hedges in which is concealed wire, or fences made of thin strips of oak overlapping at the side, which, allowed to weather, finally take the color of the landscape: green where green predominates, otherwise a rusty brown. These boundary lines say more plainly than words, ' Respect my privacy — all within is mine.’ The English equivalent of ‘Welcome’ is ‘Private.'

Our greatest jurist, John Marshall, uttered an unpleasant truth when he said, ‘The power to tax is the power to destroy.’ These great estates are being destroyed; it is inevitable that the right of primogeniture must pass. England is now in the throes of a revolution in which is being accomplished what was only done in France by the shedding of blood. It was while we were meditating upon these matters that there appeared in the Spectator, in response to a request from its editor, a brief article written by a Dutchman in reply to the question put to him: ‘What is wrong with England?’ The question was to be answered in eight hundred words. ‘I do not require eight hundred, or eighty; your question can be answered in eight,’ said the Dutchman: ‘England has idled and played away her position,’and then he enlarged upon this text, convincingly, if sadly. ‘And the remedy,’ he said; ‘your King gave it, years ago, when still Prince of Wales, in a famous speech at the Guildhall, when he said, “Wake up, England!” By waking up, by putting in more work and less play, all of you, high and low, you will, aided by the many sterling qualities of your race, retrieve a considerable part of the ground you have lost.'

But will they? I hope so, for what nation can take Britain’s place in the world? But her problems are terrific; her poverty is appalling, especially in the north. Glasgow is horrible: one could not enjoy its fine picture gallery for thinking of the misery outside, groups of unemployed and unemployable standing about waiting for the miserable dole on which they subsist. And the worst of it is that a generation is growing up that has never worked and does not intend to. On my return to London, I spoke to John Burns about this and of its dangers. ‘Ay,’ said he, ‘ but there are families living in Mayfair and Belgravia who have not done a tap of work for six hundred years!’— which is a retort, but not an answer.

We were glad to escape from a scene of so much misery into the gentle loveliness of the Lakes, but a feeling of sadness came over us again when we visited Chatsworth: its grandeur was depressing; even the romantic beauty of Haddon Hall seemed to have lost some of its charm. Once again, and perhaps for the last time, we called at Hardwick. I make no pretense of being on intimate terms with His Grace, the Duke of Devonshire, one of whose homes this lovely old palace is; but I count his housekeeper a friend, and in her company I have several times explored the Hall from cellar to garret. What an amazing person was Bess, its builder! Married for the first time before she was fourteen, the habit then formed she kept up: she married and built, and married and built, until at last ‘Hardwick Hall, more glass than wall,’was completed, whereupon she gathered her feet up into her bed and died, much to the relief of her last husband, as he does not hesitate to record. The old red-haired harridan has always fascinated me: in appearance and in other ways she much resembled Queen Elizabeth, whose unwilling guest she had been in the Tower while her husband acted as gaoler to Mary Queen of Scots.

Widows don’t stay widows long in England. With us, as soon as our wives get our insurance money they sink peacefully into rocking-chairs and rock themselves slowly into their graves. An Englishwoman is always ready again to take a chance — to let hope triumph over experience. It was while sitting in a public house late one afternoon, dressed in my oldest clothes and wearing a cap, — for a hat sometimes makes one conspicuous, — that I overheard a conversation on marriage that might have been taken bodily from one of Hardy’s novels. It was a cold, raw day, and I had unintentionally assisted at a funeral in the Abbey Church of the town, warmed only by a few wax tapers. After the coffin had been borne away on the shoulders of six men in weepers, I left promptly for a near-by tavern to have a drop of something hot. On both sides of a tiny grate, in which a fire was smouldering, sat a group of country yokels, one of whom after a time made a place for me. A few words were said as to the funeral, then all was quiet; finally an old man remarked: ‘H’l do ’ear as ’ow ’e’s left ’er a thousan’ poun’.’ ‘A thousan’ poun’!’ exclaimed another. ‘She won’t be a widdy long with a thousan’ poun’.’ ‘I would marry worse nor her for less,’ said an old man with perhaps three badly placed teeth in his head. ‘Ay, but would she have ye?’ said another. ‘Ye can’t tell,’ said the first speaker; ‘lonesome is lonesome.’ ‘She won’t stay lonesome long with all that money, and the ’ouse is freehold, I’m told,’ remarked another. ‘She married for money once; maybe next time ’t will be for love. I’ve no doubt some lively young man is a-consolin’ her now this very minute.’ And so the talk went on. Why waste your time looking at a genre painting in a museum when you can take part in one?

If ever I had a longing for a large estate, I had gotten bravely over it: for me the quiet life, the quieter and simpler the better, as less likely to be disturbed. We motored from place to place, and I noticed that our spirits rose perceptibly as we neared London. Someone asked us why we did not go to Broadway, and we did, spending several pleasant days at that delightful hostelry, the Lygon Arms. A good, large, well-aired room, with a comfortable bed and a bath, was given us and thoroughly enjoyed. I am a light sleeper, — that is to say, after the first seven or eight hours my rest is broken, — and often I have wondered of what the mattresses in English provincial hotels are made; a deal table could not be harder, and a deal table would have the advantage of being flat, while the mattresses are studded — with what, I ask you. And I have wondered, too, where the English got their ideas of bathtubs, but that question was satisfactorily answered when I saw a row of stone coffins, dating from Saxon times, standing upright against an old church in Shrewsbury: they furnished the pattern.

We were at Broadway, but that lovely picturesque village of one street hardly charmed me as I thought it would. One feels that it is losing its old-world air — its refinement, perhaps. On Sunday it is crowded with trippers, and while one wishes them well, and is glad that the char-à-bancs is able to transport so many people out of themselves, one would not care to live in a glass house, so to speak, for their amusement. A feeling of delicacy prevented our calling on Mary Anderson de Navarro, whom I once knew, and who has for some years made Broadway her home; fearful of troubling her, we scarcely dared look at her charming home.

We had timed our journey to reach London on a Sunday evening, and the sun was just setting when we found ourselves approaching Stoke Poges Church, made forever famous by Gray’s immortal Elegy. The bells were being pealed and we stopped for a few minutes, although we wanted to get the distant prospect of Eton College from the terrace at Windsor, and keep an appointment for dinner at the Café Royal. It was fine to get back.

There remained to be explored some charming spots in Sussex and in Kent. We thought of Tunbridge Wells, whence my people had several centuries ago emigrated to America, and of a little Mary Tudor cottage, with a garden, at Stone Cross, only a pleasant drive over the common from the station. It had a lovely old-world garden, as, indeed, what cottage in England has not? No people in the world love gardens as do the English, but, as Kipling says,

. . . such gardens are not made By saying ' Oh! how beautiful! ’ and sitting in the shade.

The English work for them — and they are assisted by nature as nowhere else. They have no sudden changes as we do: the word ‘sudden’ indeed exists for them only in the pages of a dictionary. When it rains — and it does rain — it rains gently; with us, it pours: it washes out our paths and our drives, it beats down our flowers, and those that have survived the flood are destroyed by the heat. The cottage at Stone Cross was not to be had, but we loved it just the same, for was it not the home of two of our dearest friends? It stands near what was in the time of the Conqueror a magnificent oak; now it is a ruin, but a stately one, respected for its age. ‘Queen Elizabeth once had tea under that oak,’ our chauffeur told us, quite indifferent to the fact that tea was not introduced into England till after her death; but tea is now consumed in such quantities that one cannot imagine a time when it was unknown.

The English countryside is picturesque to a degree; except in the manufacturing districts in the north, which are ugly, as they are everywhere, the whole country is beautiful. It has a washed and combed and brushed appearance, entirely lacking in our newer land. But it is not to be forgotten that what is picturesque may be very uncomfortable and unhygienic. Think, for example, of living in a cottage built of porous stone, without a cellar, the floors of which are of stone, laid directly upon the cold damp earth. Whenever I visit Dove Cottage, the home of Wordsworth, for instance, I can never free myself of the idea of the self-centred William calling to his sister Dorothy of a winter’s morning to heat and bring up his shaving water, and of her paddling about on stones as hard and cold as lumps of ice.

We looked at several little villas near Tunbridge Wells, we explored the Thames country, and were fascinated by its loveliness, but somehow we had lost heart in the undertaking. If the truth must be told, we were a trifle homesick. For all our many friends in England, we felt that we should not be welcome. Americans are cordially disliked; and the reason is not far to seek. We have thrown Europe out of balance; the globe is no longer round like an orange, but elliptical like an egg. As Galsworthy makes one of his characters say: ‘The world would have been a much cosier place if Christopher Columbus had been less inquisitive.’ Had we remained in England, we should have spent the rest of our lives in making explanations which would hardly have been understood. We had a perfectly good house at home, — full of ups and downs, like life, — built from time to time to meet what we thought were our requirements. We had grown into it like a suit of old clothes: we wondered why we had ever thought of leaving it, and felt just a little bit ashamed of ourselves. We decided to return, taking to heart a remark we had one day heard an old caretaker make, that ‘ it takes a ’eap of living in a ’ouse to make it ’ome.'