grounds for bringing an action of slander in the
courts above.

But the circumstance, lightly as we treat it, has its serious moral.
What nonsense it is, this anxiety, which so worries us, about our good
fame, or our bad fame, after death! If it were of the slightest real
moment, our reputations would have been placed by Providence more in our
own power, and less in other people's, than we now find them to be. If
poor Anthony Forster happens to have met Sir Walter in the other world,
I doubt whether he has ever thought it worth while to complain of the
latter's misrepresentations.

We did not remain long in the church, as it contains nothing else of
interest; and driving through the village, we passed a pretty large and
rather antique-looking inn, bearing the sign of the Bear and Ragged
Staff. It could not be so old, however, by at least a hundred years,
as Giles Gosling's time; nor is there any other object to remind the
visitor of the Elizabethan age, unless it be a few ancient cottages,
that are perhaps of still earlier date. Cumnor is not nearly so large a
village, nor a place of such mark, as one anticipates from its romantic
and legendary fame; but, being still inaccessible by railway, it has
retained more of a sylvan character than we often find in English
country-towns. In this retired neighborhood the road is narrow and
bordered with grass, and sometimes interrupted by gates; the hedges grow
in unpruned luxuriance; there is not that close-shaven neatness and
trimness that characterize the ordinary English landscape. The
whole scene conveys the idea of seclusion and remoteness. We met no
travellers, whether on foot or otherwise.

I cannot very distinctly trace out this day's peregrinations; but, after
leaving Cumnor a few miles behind us, I think we came to a ferry over
the Thames, where an old woman served as ferry-man, and pulled a boat
across by means of a rope stretching from shore to shore. Our
two vehicles being thus placed on the other side, we resumed our
drive,--first glancing, however, at the old woman's antique cottage,
with its stone floor, and the circular settle round the kitchen
fireplace, which was quite in the mediaeval English style.

We next stopped at Stanton Harcourt, where we were received at the
parsonage with a hospitality which we should take delight in describing,
if it were allowable to make public acknowledgment of the private and
personal kindnesses which we never failed to find