ul home scenery his eyes had ever lighted on. If English
landscape is pleasant to the American of the present day, who must needs
contrast the rich woods and growing pastures and picturesque ancient
villages of the old country with the rough aspect of his own, how much
pleasanter must Harry Warrington's course have been, whose journeys had
lain through swamps and forest solitudes from one Virginian ordinary to
another log-house at the end of the day's route, and who now lighted
suddenly upon the busy, happy, splendid scene of English summer? And the
high-road, a hundred years ago, was not that grass-grown desert of the
present time. It was alive with constant travel and traffic: the country
towns and inns swarmed with life and gaiety. The ponderous waggon, with
its bells and plodding team; the light post-coach that achieved the
journey from the "White Hart," Salisbury, to the "Swan with Two Necks,"
London, in two days; the strings of pack-horses that had not yet left the
road; my lord's gilt post-chaise and six, with the outriders galloping on
ahead; the country squire's great coach and heavy Flanders mares; the
farmers trotting to market, or the parson jolting to the cathedral town
on Dumpling, his wife behind on the pillion--all these crowding sights
and brisk people greeted the young traveller on his summer journey.
Hodge, the farmer's boy, took off his hat, and Polly, the milk-maid,
bobbed a curtsey, as the chaise whirled over the pleasant village-green,
and the white-headed children lifted their chubby faces and cheered. The
church-spires glistened with gold, the cottage-gables glared in sunshine,
the great elms murmured in summer, or cast purple shadows over the
grass. Young Warrington never had had such a glorious day, or witnessed a
scene so delightful. To be nineteen years of age, with high health, high
spirits, and a full purse, to be making your first journey, and rolling
through the country in a post-chaise at nine miles an hour--Oh, happy
youth! almost it makes one young to think of him!

And there let us leave him at Castlewood Inn, on ground hallowed by the
footsteps of his ancestors. There he stands, with new scenes, new
friends, new experiences ahead, rich in hope, in expectation, and in the
enthusiasm of youth--youth that comes but once, and is so fleet of foot!

And still more glad would he have been had he known that the near future
was to verify his mother's belief; to restore to him the twin-brother