pass through it, and for the nonce to act the part of "guide, philosopher, and friend."
For the first few miles it was a getting-out-of-town all the way; houses and villas lined the road more or less, with tantalising peeps between—peeps ever growing wider and more frequent—of the greenful country stretching away to the blue horizon beyond, a beyond that looked very alluring to our town-tired eyes. We drove on apace, for we found nothing to specially interest or detain us till we reached Barnet; we felt only anxious to escape as speedily as possible from the ever-spreading domain of bricks and mortar, and to reach the real open country, where pleasant footpaths take the place of the hard pavements, and fragrant hedgerows, verdurous meadows, and tilled fields with their green and golden crops that of houses raised by the speculative builder—to sell. How much better was the old system of men building their own homes to live in! The speculative builder is the unhappy product of a progressive (?) century; he perhaps is responsible for the uglification of London more than aught else, and, alas! is still adding to it.
Passing through the once rural hamlet of Whetstone, it was difficult to realise that this now frequented spot was erst the favourite hunting-ground of that famous (or infamous, if you will) arch-highwayman, Dick Turpin. Great indeed was the terror inspired by his name, for it is recorded that many a Scotch nobleman, squire, and merchant of the period, having occasion to go from Edinburgh to London or vice versa,
