and always enjoyed their visits, and that they paid her every year a most extraordinary honor. “Just think of a whole country celebrating your birthday! Wouldn’t you feel honored? That’s what you Americans do.” She said it with mischievous, snapping eyes. Of course I took in in a moment that the Fourth of July was her birthday. “Ah,” I replied, “and to think of fifty millions of people doing all that honor, and not knowing what they are doing.” “Fifty millions of people!” She came right up to me, and her look changed to amazement—“what a grand country it must be!” I told her it was too bad her name was unknown, and she must give it to me. “Mary Huxley.” I said,

You ought to have seen her delight. She talked to me down to the very last step, after giving me “a hearty grip” by way of good-bye.

Then I saw Chester Cathedral, where Hugh Lupus, nephew of William the Conqueror, is buried. On Sunday night, some of us attended service there, after which there was an organ recital, a very fine performance. Next morning, all five of us went down into the dark, damp, crypts. The amount of exquisite carving in it is something wonderful. I am not going into the age and size of it and all that. Go to the library and get a book on English Cathedrals and Cathedral Towns and read, and think that that is what your correspondent is seeing. Another one is St. John’s Church, still more ancient, with its abbey, a lovely ivy-covered ruin. I could not bear to leave it. Another feature is the old castle now used as an armory and barracks. The hands of the Romans have left many evidences of their work here in the wall, the columns still standing in place of some kinds of fortifications. The old town is full of queer things, and has a weird sort of fascination; among these “the Rows,” a succession of arcades built on the roofs of ancient triangular-shaped houses. The handsomest shops are in them. The neighborhood has the honor of containing Eaton Hall, the seat of the Duke of Westminster. We visited it, driving and walking all over its splendid walks, and gardens, and lawns, and parks, and getting a first-rate look into the palace. We could not go inside, because it was full of workmen finishing the inside ornamentation. The grounds are ten square miles in extent. There were immense conservatories, full of the rarest flowers and plants. In one I saw the Egyptian lotus floating in full bloom in an immense tank. The head gardener was our guide. He was a very intelligent person, well-mannered and pleasant and clever, because he gave me a handful of flowers and broke off a nice little branch from a cedar of Lebanon, brought from the Holy Land expressly for the place. He gave us a great deal of information about the family; among other things he told me the Duke was not handsome, but a good man. He spoke with emphasis.

The Dee winds through those miles of acres and is spanned by a number of bridges. The villages of the tenantry are pretty and looked comfortable. I saw deer by hundreds in the park. We returned to Liverpool, and remained two days in attendance on the conference. A number of the leading men were there, and we heard them speak and preach. There were Armstrong, Carpenter, Sir Thomas Hayward and others. They were fine-looking men, and extremely interesting. The audience was as enthusiastic and demonstrative as that of our Methodist Conferences.

From Liverpool we whisked away to Rowsley Station, Derbyshire, to the Peacock Inn, the quaintest manor-house, now doing duty according to its name. The object of this was to visit Chatsworth, the seat of the Duke of Devonshire, and Haddon Hall, a lovely unused ruin, belonging to the Duke of Rutland. The country in every direction was a vision of beauty—a sea of living green—bespangled with flowers as thickly as the floor of heaven is inlaid with stars; or in Derbyshire, breaking up into great cliffs, showing the beautiful stone which is so generally used in building. The grounds of the inn were washed by the Derwent, a winding stream of exceeding beauty.

We made an early start in a wagonette for Chatsworth. It was an ideal day—the Spring in full burst, with that delicate film of blue mist that always makes me think of a veil, to enhance its charms—the whole way a succession of pictures—vales, swelling uplands, far hills, the Derwent in its curious curves. We were speechless and exclamatory by turns.

Chatsworth is a palace, in the midst of its thousands of acres cultivated and adorned in every possible way; its exquisite lawn laid out in innumerable gardens in Italian, Alpine, German, French, and ever so many other styles; its wonderful conservatory designed by Sir Joshua Paxton, who modeled the Crystal Palace on the same plan, as you no doubt know; and the gorgeousness of the long suite of show rooms. The rooms of course are filled with all that the money and taste of its long generations have accumulated—the rooms in themselves, for their noble dimensions, rich, tasteful and expensive finish; and their lovely views of stream, lakes, meadows, forests, and lovely distances. I saw the hangings of a state bedstead worked by Mary Queen of Scots, and the Countess of Shrewsbury; the rosary of Henry the Eighth; and some portraits of the beautiful duchesses that have distinguished the house (though not Georgiana); and some splendid pieces of statuary. I shall never forget Canova’s Endymion, and Thorwalsden’s Venus. The guide went round the grounds by my side and proved himself a most agreeable fellow—telling me all the family gossip I cared to know. I dare not attempt to get it all in here, though I’ve a misgiving you’d rather hear it than all the rest. I may as well tell you that I always keep close to the guide and—it pays. They are always the head, or one of the gardeners, and are a constant astonishment to me for their good manners, choice language, as well as their intelligence.

I asked if the heir, the Marquis of Hartington (leader in the House of Commons), was handsome; he laughed merrily, shaking his head, “No indeed, he is very plain, and you just ought to see him slouch around here. This is the way he walks”—and he gave an illustration to my infinite amusement. Only he and I were together, the rest were lagging a wide interval behind.

The deer park has two thousand acres and eight hundred head of deer. We saw several different herds of one hundred each, perhaps two hundred.

Next by a short drive, to Haddon Hall on a hill overlooking as fair a scene as eye would care to dwell on. A soft drab stone, time-stained and worn, moss and ivy covered, it is an immense pile built around a quadrangular court, with its ancient rooms sufficiently well-preserved to show in what state it was kept away back in that romantic age. The grand banqueting hall, with antlers for ornaments, its old table in the upper end, with the same old benches, both worm-eaten; besides this the dining hall for daily use, wainscoted to the ceiling in heavy, dark oak panels, and a great round table; the drawing-room with its arras, hangings said to be of the fourteenth century, the bed-rooms hung in the same way; the dancing saloon one hundred and ten by seventeen feet wide, with its grand stained windows, and a bust of one of the countesses taken after her death. I went up Percival tower and stood on it looking down into the “inner court” (the quadrangle) and off over the landscape, and trying to imagine “the olden time.” There is a door opening on to an avenue of yews with a terrace and steps into a walled flower garden with a postern gate in the wall, outside which are steps leading to a bridge across the moat beyond