e it, and now the village is being re-decorated by the motor-car.

The Ripley road, for the two days in the week when it is most used, is a
place to avoid. Yet it can be beautiful, and there is an approach to it
hardly equalled near any other highway in the county. The late Mrs.
Buxton, of Foxwarren Park, above Wisley Common, for years permitted the
public to walk and drive through her private grounds away from the high
road, and that generous lady's permission has been continued by her
successor. The carriage drive runs by oaks and bracken through which
pheasants rustle, past a strange, tall column of black wood--a
totem-pole brought from Queen Charlotte's Islands; then it rises to the
edge of a ridge overlooking a wide and level stretch of pinewood and
heather. In August, when the ling is out with the bell-heather, and the
pines stand deep in fern and rushes, no lovelier carpet spreads under
any Surrey hill. The road runs a white thread through it--a road best
viewed from afar. The weight of wheels has ground the surface to powder.

Ripley itself, but for the traffic, would be the prettiest village on
the road. A long string of low-roofed houses lines the highway; little
white gabled cottages offer tea and refreshment; two old inns share
most, I suppose, of the custom of fasting travellers. The Anchor, an inn
of many gables, has fixed itself in the affections of bicyclists since
the days when they rode velocipedes, and its black-beamed walls and
passages hold drawings of strange souls mounted on wheels which would
have scared Ixion. The Talbot, which was once the Dog (but a talbot is a
dog always), is a house of imposing squareness. You may see the dog
painted above the door, a liver-and-white fox-terrier, all proper.
Opposite the inns stretches Ripley green, a broad and shining level with
many memories of Surrey cricket, and in particular of "Lumpy" Stevens,
of Send.

[Illustration: _The Village Street, Ripley._]

The motor-car has brought prosperity, even if it is a prosperity that
can soil. But the tarnish washes off in night and rain. Ripley may look
its best early on a Saturday morning, before the flood rushes down the
road. When the little village lies clean and fresh in the sun, and the
inns are busy with white tablecloths and cooking potatoes, and the
children sit on the edge of the green before the dust comes, there is a
sense of orderly bustle and of waiting for a day of hard work and good
money that is p