A CONCEIT IN METAL into requisition to record their varied outlines and quaint conceits, that truly splendid specimen of the "Bell" at Stilton—about which I shall have more to say when we arrive there—especially delighting us. At the sign of a certain "White Hart" elsewhere we could not but imagine that the open iron-work above it in the shape of a heart was not accidental, but intended as a play on words in metal, if the expression may be allowed.
After Graveley the road plucked up a little spirit and the scenery improved, just as though it were doing its best to please us. At one point there suddenly opened a fine view to the left, reaching over a vast extent of country bounded by an uneven horizon of wooded hills—hills that showed as a long, low undulating line, deeply blue, but enlivened by touches of greeny-gold where the sunshine rested for a moment here and there; it was as if Nature in one of her lavish moods had washed the horizon over with a tint of ultramarine, "for who can paint like Nature?"—little she recks the quantity or the rarity of the hues she employs, miles upon miles oftentimes, and that for a mere transient effect! To our right also our charmed visions ranged over a wide expanse of wooded plain, so space-expressing in its wealth of distances, the blue of which made us realise the ocean of air that lay between us and the remote horizon, the reality of the invisible!
After the confined limits of the house-bound streets of town, our eyes positively rejoiced in the unaccustomed freedom of roving unrestrained over so much space—a sudden change from yards to
