hich passed into the
hands of the L----s and is still in their possession. There is an
interesting chapel in the grounds, containing the tombs of some of the
former owners, whose deeds were more warlike, though probably less
numerous, than those of the present occupants.

From here an easy walk up the Strand will bring you to the starting
point, Charing Cross Embankment Station, where you can take the train
again; but if you are fit and between the ages of forty-one and fifty,
you can continue the walk till you reach the nearest Recruiting
Office.

* * * * *

"Happy Home offered slight Mental Youth or otherwise."--_Times_.

A chance for one of our slim conscientious objectors.

* * * * *

LINES ON RE-READING "BLEAK HOUSE."

There was a time when, posing as a purist,
I thought it fine to criticise and crab
CHARLES DICKENS as a crude caricaturist,
Who laid his colours on too thick and slab,
Who was a sort of sentimental tourist
And made life lurid when it should be drab;
In short I branded as a brilliant dauber
The man who gave us _Pecksniff_ and _Micawber_.

True, there are blots--like spots upon the sun--
And genius, lavish of imagination,
In sheer profusion always has outrun
The bounds of strict artistic concentration;
But when detraction's worst is said and done,
How much remains for fervent admiration,
How much that never palls or wounds or sickens
(Unlike some moderns) in great generous DICKENS!

And in _Bleak House_, the culminating story
That marks the zenith of his swift career,
All the great qualities that won him glory,
As writer and reformer too, appear:
Righteous resentment of abuses hoary,
Of pomp and cant, self-centred, insincere;
And burning sympathy that glows unchecked
For those who sit in darkness and neglect.

Who, if his heart be not of steel or stone,
Can read unmoved of _Charley_ or of _Jo_;
Of dear _Miss Flite_, who, though her wits be flown,
Has kept a soul as pure as driven snow;
Of the fierce "man from Shropshire" overthrown
By Law's delays; of _Caddy's_ inky woe;
Or of the alternating fits and fluster
That harass the unhappy slavey, _Guster_?

And there are scores of characters so vivid
They make us friends or enemies for life:
_Hortense_, half-tamed she-wolf, with envy livid;
The patient _Snagsby_ and his