A SELF-APPOINTED GUIDE regularly re-occurs to me, that I have become quite philosophical on the subject! There is no novelty about the same experience often repeated; the only rejoinder it provokes on my part is a smiling "Of course," or a mild, remonstrating "Oh! I left that for another day."
On entering Welwyn church, we encountered a talkative old body; why she was there I cannot say, for she was apparently doing nothing, and this is no tourist-haunted region with guides of both sexes on the watch and wait for the unwary; but there she was, a substantial personage not to be overlooked. At once she attached herself to us, and asked if we had come to see Dr. Young's tomb—"him as wrote the Night Thoughts." We meekly replied that we did not even know that he was buried there. "Well," she responded, "now I do wonders at that, I thoughts as how everybody knew it." From the superior tone in which she said this, we felt that she looked down upon us as ignoramuses—such is the lot of the traveller who does not know everything! Then she pointed out with a grimy finger—assuming the aggravating air of one who has valuable information to impart, and will impart it whether you will or no—a marble slab put up to the memory of the worthy doctor (I presume he was a worthy doctor) on the south wall of the nave. Having duly inspected this, our self-appointed guide suddenly exclaimed, still maintaining her amusing didactic manner, "He'd much better have gone to bed and slept like a good Christian than have sit up o' nights a-writing his thoughts." We weakly
