uries ago; we now have one
or two small coasting vessels, half their time aground in a muddy little
river--we don't regret our harbor. But one house in the town is daring
enough to anticipate the arrival of resident visitors, and announces
furnished apartments to let. What a becoming contrast to our modern
neighbor, Ramsgate! Our noble market-place exhibits the laws made by the
corporation; and every week there are fewer and fewer people to obey the
laws. How convenient! Look at our one warehouse by the river side--with
the crane generally idle, and the windows mostly boarded up; and perhaps
one man at the door, looking out for the job which his better sense
tells him cannot possibly come. What a wholesome protest against the
devastating hurry and over-work elsewhere, which has shattered the
nerves of the nation! "Far from me and from my friends" (to borrow the
eloquent language of Doctor Johnson) "be such frigid enthusiasm as shall
conduct us indifferent and unmoved" over the bridge by which you enter
Sandwich, and pay a toll if you do it in a carriage. "That man is
little to be envied (Doctor Johnson again) who can lose himself in
our labyrinthine streets, and not feel that he has reached the welcome
limits of progress, and found a haven of rest in an age of hurry."

I am wandering again. Bear with the unpremeditated enthusiasm of a
citizen who only attained years of discretion at her last birthday. We
shall soon have done with Sandwich; we are close to the door of the inn.

"You can't mistake it now, sir," I said. "Good-morning."

He looked down at me from under his beautiful eyelashes (have I
mentioned that I am a little woman?), and he asked in his persuasive
tones: "Must we say good-by?"

I made him a bow.

"Would you allow me to see you safe home?" he suggested.

Any other man would have offended me. This man blushed like a boy, and
looked at the pavement instead of looking at me. By this time I had made
up my mind about him. He was not only a gentleman beyond all doubt, but
a shy gentleman as well. His bluntness and his odd remarks were, as I
thought, partly efforts to disguise his shyness, and partly refuges in
which he tried to forget his own sense of it. I answered his audacious
proposal amiably and pleasantly. "You would only lose your way again,"
I said, "and I should have to take you back to the inn for the second
time."

Wasted words! My obstinate stranger only made another proposal.

"I have ord