glish soil. A
respectable-looking woman, exceedingly homely, but decidedly New
Englandish, came to my office with a great bundle of documents,
containing evidences of her indubitable claim to the site on which all
the principal business part of Liverpool has long been situated.

All these matters, however, were quite distinct from the real business
of that great Consulate, which is now woefully fallen off. The technical
details I left to the treatment of two faithful, competent English
subordinates. An American has never time to make himself thoroughly
qualified for a foreign post before the revolution of the political
wheel discards him from his office. For myself, I was not at all the
kind of man to grow into an ideal consul. I never desired to be burdened
with public influence, and the official business was irksome. When my
successor arrived, I drew a long, delightful breath.

These English sketches comprise a few of the things that I took note of,
in many escapes from my consular servitude. Liverpool is a most
convenient point to get away from. I hope that I do not compromise my
American patriotism by acknowledging that in visiting many famous
localities, I was often conscious of a fervent hereditary attachment to
the native soil of our forefathers, and felt it to be our Old Home.

_II.--A Sentimental Experience_

There is a small nest of a place in Leamington which I remember as one
of the cosiest nooks in England. The ordinary stream of life does not
run through this quiet little pool, and few of the inhabitants seem to
be troubled with any outside activities.

Its original nucleus lies in the fiction of a chalybeate well. I know
not if its waters are ever tasted nowadays, but it continues to be a
resort of transient visitors. It lies in pleasant Warwickshire at the
very midmost point of England, surrounded by country seats and castles,
and is the more permanent abode of genteel, unoccupied, not very wealthy
people.

My chief enjoyment there lay in rural walks to places of interest in the
neighbourhood. The high-roads are pleasant, but a fresher interest is to
be found in the footpaths which go wandering from stile to stile, along
hedges and across broad fields, and through wooded parks. These by-paths
admit the wayfarer into the very heart of rural life. Their antiquity
probably exceeds that of the Roman ways; the footsteps of the aboriginal
Britons first wore away the grass, and the natural flow of int