be owned, extremely comfortable and the service
good.

But it was town and not country--to-day and not the olden time; and I
did not feel courage enough to ask for the book. I believe I should
have left the place without mentioning it, but, fortunately looking
round the room while the lunch was prepared, I found it in the
bookcase, where there was a strange mixture of the modern and antique.
I took down the history from between Rich's thin grey 'Ruins of
Babylon' and a yellow-bound railway novel.

Towards the close of the eighteenth century a learned gentleman had
taken much pains to gather together this account of the town. He began
with the story of Brutus, and showed that one of the monarchs
descended from the illustrious Trojan founded a city here. Some fossil
shells, indeed, that had been dug up furnished him with conclusive
proof that the Deluge had not left the site uncovered, since no how
else could they have got there: an argument commonly accepted in his
day. Thus he commenced, like the monks themselves, with the beginning
of the world; but then came a wide gap down to Domesday Book. The
hides and yardlands held by the conquerors--how much was in demesne,
how many acres were wood and how many meadow--the number of servi, and
what the mill paid were duly translated and recorded.

The descent of the manors through the monasteries and the persons who
purchased them at the Dissolution filled several pages, and was
supplemented with a charter recognising rights of infang and outfang,
assize of bread and ale, and so forth. Finally, there was a list of
the mayors, which some one had carried on in manuscript on a fly-leaf
to within ten years of date. There was an air of precision in the
exact sentences, and the writer garnished his tale with frequent
quotations from Latin writers. In the midst was a wood-cut of a plant
having no sort of relevancy to the subject-matter, but for which he
returned thanks for the loan of the block.

But he had totally omitted his own times. These quotations, these
lists and charters, the extracts from Domesday, read dry and
formal--curious, and yet not interesting. Had he described the squires
and yeomen, the townspeople of his own day, their lives and manner of
thinking, how invaluable and pleasing his work would have been!

Hilary said that in these little country towns years ago people had to
be very careful how they acted, lest they should offend some local
magnate. He remember