long avenues and extensive country-parks with deer grazing by hundreds, the village hedge-rows with wild flowers blooming on them and taking the traveller by surprise by their sweet scent, and last though not the least, the neat huts dotting the country-fields, and the village church lifting its modest spire from among them,—these are scenes really worth seeing. But this is not all. In the country you find Englishmen from altogether a different and a new point of view. Freed from the conventionalities of London the Englishman in his country seat is much more free and unfettered,—much more jovial and at home with every one whom he comes across. It is a delight to see him mixing freely and almost familiarly with the poor villagers, asking them kind questions about their homes and lands and the prospects of the year, and stretching out a helping hand to them in times of need. Every village girl too knows but too well the familiar faces of the landlord's wife and daughters, and kind questions and enquiries on the one side, and a confiding and respectful regard on the other sweeten their acquaintance, and in some cases ripen it into almost sisterly affection.
A Sunday at an English village is one of the soberest things imaginable. A man with any degree of fellow sympathy in him cannot see the cheerful looking and neatly dressed groups of villagers and village girls issuing out of their humble cottages and wending to the village church without a feeling of philanthropy in his heart. After the church service is over, you often see village boys and girls assembling at the residence of the landlords and passing the day as a real holiday.
