overs.

turnovers were the cause of the untimely mortality, and he therefore should have no more. He was very fond of his brother; he was also very fond of cherry turnHowever, a short distance down the street, another boy-one who was not invited to the funeralcame up to our weeping lad and wished to walk beside him. This was a privilege to which he had no right, and he was instantly and decisively ordered off. He declined to leave; the nurse remonstrated, but the dignity of the funeral was in question, and grief gave way to threats and feelings of violence. That evening, in a back lane, under some elder trees, two boys had a fight. When the mother of one of them came with her bruised and black-eyed son to the father of the other, his opponent exclaimed, "It was my funeral; he had no right to follow my brother or to stick himself in."

That building on the right, behind the row of laurelbushes, is the Royal British School. It is not of famous reputation, nor do I know that any of its scholars have reached any position of eminence. You might find some of the old boys wheelwrights and policemen—possibly, one a gamekeeper. Nevertheless, it was largely attended in days of yore, and was remarkable for two things— a May-pole and a master. The former stood in the yard, here on the south side. Yes, it is gone, like many another good thing, but on the first day of the month of flowers it was adorned with festive and floral glory. The whole town turned out to keep May-day then, and there was a May-queen, sometimes the prettiest girl in the neighborhood, and sometimes, when no girl would act, the prettiest boy: sex made no difference. Old folks came to look on; even the Quaker, though he

was not sure such things were right-possibly only expedient, to please the youngsters. And the master! Now, it is the master of whom I wish to speak, and as we walk on I will tell you about him. He took part in the fun, you may be sure, and everybody thought he was only a boy grown old. His accomplishments were varied. First of all, he was a Welshman and knew how to pronounce a word with eighteen consonants and only three vowels in it. Then he was a musician and could sing a song and scrape a violin. And lastly he was an economic and, as he was very poorly paid, knew how to make a decent living out of poverty. Where thrift is an object, it is well to have it taught by experienced teachers. Besides these gifts, he was a small man, very fond of potatoes and geography -he would hoe the one and talk about the other at the same time—had a wife, dabbled in local zoology, rode a dandy-horse, the precursor of the bicycle, read Sir Walter Scott, knew a little carpentering, kept rabbits and canaries and was looked upon with respect by all who knew him. The masters at the grammar-school did not know him, and therefore could not be expected to think anything of him; but their pupil did, and, not altogether liking his solitude, used to mingle with these ruder boys, and, all things considered, got a fair amount of pleasure out of life. It was he who advised the rubbing of the master's cane with a lemon. During a mid-day recess it was done, placed in the sun to dry, and in the afternoon when applied to a boy's shoulders it split into fragments. It was he also who knew the intricacies of tit-tat-too and how to win all the fellows' taws. Nobody could make whistles out of willow-sticks

as well as he, and nobody else could talk Welsh with the master. The latter thought him a clever and promising lad and gave him many a hint concerning kidney potatoes and the use of the Latin subjunctive. It was rumored that they had frequently gone fishing together, and some one said that their intention was some day to go to New Zealand and buy a farm. That was absurd on the face of it, for the master stopped at potatoes and knew no more about fox-hunting-which is an essential qualification to good farming-than the man who was sent to the moon for gathering sticks on a Sunday. -Here is the train! Oxford? All right. Grand old place, Thame. Full of interest; church worth going many a mile to see. Tired? Warm day and a long walk. Never mind; draw the blue curtain aside and. let the last sunbeams in.-Well, yes, the old schoolmaster is dead. He died years ago-some said studied to death and some said starved to death, but there is no telling. Teachers were not paid much in those days, and the wonder is there were any teachers at all. Common people did not want their children to know more than plain reading and writing and the rule of three. They had been happy on less, and fine schooling was not for the likes of them. Now that is all changed. Education is the order of the day. Ploughboys have a chance to learn Greek, and girls whose mothers washed dishes at twopence an hour can embroider and play the piano. It is enough to disturb even Lord Williams and all the old squires at Aston Rowant. And what will be the end? You cannot have wait on you at table a fellow who knows the rudiments of Sanskrit and all about conic sections, nor can you have

to scrub your floor or to starch your collars a woman. who can speak Italian and criticise Matthew Arnold. When everybody knows as much as you know, what will become of you? Electricity, eh? Nonsense! Talk about electricity after a day spent in the country and a town whose only idea of a track of lightning is the trail of a snail across a cabbage-leaf! In America we have the negro and the Irish to do our heavy labor and the Chinese to do our washing, but what have you in England got? No, the people here are dull; we have seen more to-day than half the inhabitants hereabouts have seen in a lifetime. But they are going to wake up; the schools are doing wonders. If the old master were to come back, he would shake his head and say, "Alas! alas! Teaching the boys political economy and the girls botany! And where is that obedience which only can make boys men and girls women ?"

Oxford again. Woodstock, Chipping Norton, Moreton-in-the-Marsh. A few miles' drive in the clear, bright moonlight, and then we sleep amid lavender and shadows.

CHAPTER IX.

The Pilgrimage to Canterbury.

"And specially, from every schires ende

Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
The holy blisful martir for to seeke,

That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke."

No loyal churchman visiting England is likely to forego the pilgrimage to Canterbury. That is among his first duties, and is one of his chief pleasures. There is the cradle of English Christendom; there, the throne of the primate and patriarch of the Anglican communion. If he seek but to gratify his love for history and art, here he will revel in associations and surroundings of rare and multiform nature, and in the splendor of religious imagination and skill will feel as Mohammed did concerning Damascus: "After Canterbury, only paradise."

Our journey thitherward was made in a pleasant sunny morning. We could not, indeed, travel in the happy, leisurely way of dear old Chaucer's pilgrims, but the run by rail from Charing Cross through the glorious Kentish land-the country where the roses are redder and the grass is greener than in any other region in the kingdom-is of satisfying charm. The district is rich in fertile fields, thick hedgerows, noble trees, great hopgardens and pretty towns and villages. There are sev