the open air, we laid in a plentiful stock of the former. An out-of-door life, such as the one we led, without fatigue, and with a sufficiency of interest to pleasurably engage the attention, is the finest tonic in the world, I verily believe, for mind and body, bracing both up; so that the answer of the happy driving tourist to the doleful query, "Is life worth living?" would be, to employ the schoolboy's expressive slang, "Very much so."
After Stevenage we entered upon a pleasantly undulating and purely agricultural and pastoral country, with nothing noteworthy till we came to a neat little village that we made out from our map to be Graveley. Here an unpretending inn, the "George and Dragon" to wit, boasted of a fine wrought-iron support for its sign, doubtless a relic of a past prosperity when this was a much-travelled highway, and the hostelries on the road had the benefit of many customers. We noticed that the painting of the sign, at least in our estimation, was sadly inferior in artistic spirit to the clever craftsmanship displayed in the iron-work supporting it; possibly the sign-board was of old as artistically limned as its support was wrought, but the weathering of years would efface the drawing and colouring, and later and less skilful hands may have renewed the design, whilst, of course, the more enduring iron would still retain its ancient charm of form unimpaired.
The gracefulness and bold curving and twisting of the metal-work that supports and upholds the sign of many an ancient coaching inn had a peculiar fascination for us, and frequently brought our pencil
