book indoors that had belonged to his great-grandfather, his grandfather, and father in turns; it was over two hundred years old, and gave the accounts of a farm of 196 acres that they had all held, father and son, after each other. They farmed the land, the landlord allowing them for labour, taxes, and tithes. It was a curious arrangement ; he could not easily explain it in a few words, but he could show me that, when the accounts were made up at the end of the year, the landlord did not get more than five shillings an acre for his property. He just mentioned this to prove that times were not so much worse in some parts for landowners now than they used to be. However, of the 196 acres, he had to confess that there was a good deal of waste land. We failed quite to understand his remarks as to the way the arrangement was carried out, but the final result was, he assured us, as stated, and the landlord could get no one to manage better. One remark he made may possibly bear somewhat upon the matter of agricultural depression: in his younger days, he said, farmers used to commence walking, and ended by riding; now they start riding and driving, and end by having to walk. Much else of various matters we gathered during the course of our conversation, but space will not permit me to enter into these.

The old farmhouse, consisting as it does of a portion of the ruined palace walls roofed over, with mighty gables, ivy covered, one side being actually all roof, down almost even to the very ground, forms a most pleasing and picturesque object; one might travel far and long before coming upon such another charm

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ing and romantic farmstead. One portion of the building has a kind of ladder or wooden stairway outside, leading to upper chambers (so, at least, we supposed), an old-fashioned arrangement, and delightful because so primitively original and quaintly inconvenient; beneath this, just visible through a tanglement of ivy, we managed to make out the date 1586 carved upon a stone. We noticed also, in an outbuilding now used for a barn, though doubtless in olden time it served a very different purpose, some ancient Gothic windows built up, and, as well, we observed the remains of sculptured heads on two old corbels, placed upon either side of the arch that now forms the entrance thereto. These may have been saintly or the reverse; we guessed the reverse, but they have become so weather-worn that it is impossible now to tell which. An old well, probably the very one belonging to the former palace, we noticed had its sides completely covered with hart'stongue ferns, at least as far down as we could trace till our vision was lost in a grey-green gloom-a sight to behold. Altogether, this rambling old farmstead, with its grey historic time-toned walls, its great roofs, lichen-laden, glowing a ruddy gold in the soft sunshine, had an indescribable charm for us, and long that summer noon did we wander, in a delightful day-dream, about the ruins of the once stately palace, endeavouring in our mind to re-edify it, and to picture to ourselves something of what it must have been like in the time of its great glory. Little did the proud builders of old think to what purpose the magnificent pile they raised here, in such splendid

state, would in long after years be put to. But travel the wide world over

'Tis still the same; where'er we tread,

The wrecks of human power we see.

Lenham-A Curious Fresco-A Lake-girt Castle-Maidstone-In the Land of Hops-A Hoppers' Camp-Scenic Contrasts-A Wayside Hostel-An Original Landlord-Ightham-The Oldest House in Kent-Ightham Mote-A Fortified House-A Family ChapelDame Dorothy Selby-A Brass Five Centuries Old-Sevenoaks -Knole Park-The End of the Journey.

SITUATED upon an unfrequented road, out of the way of the tourist beat, the past history and importance of Charing seem to be nearly wholly, if not quite, forgotten now. In olden times this road was not so forsaken, for it formed then a portion of the pilgrims' way to Canterbury, and more than one. king of England has been a guest at the archiepiscopal palace whilst journeying thither. Henry VIII. was also lodged and entertained within its hospitable walls in the year 1520, when on his way to have his famous interview with Francis I. in the Field of the Cloth of Gold, besides countless other people of lesser fame; but, as I am not writing history, I must be excused from enumerating these.

We had not proceeded far on our way after leaving Charing when Charing when we observed, some little distance from our road, the great gables and clustering chimneys of an old house peeping above surrounding trees. As such old buildings have always an attraction for us, we pulled up, and, dismounting, wandered down the narrow lane that led in the direction of the place. And well were we rewarded for our short ramble. The old farmstead-for such

it turned out to be-like numberless others in these parts, had once evidently been the residence of a gentleman of wealth or position. The building had evidently suffered much from time and neglect, yet perhaps it was more picturesque as we saw it then than it had ever been, for its walls were weathertoned and stained with almost every hue by the sun. and rain of long-forgotten years; its high-pitched roofs, green here and there with mosses, were in parts tinted a rich orange with lichens, a marvel of colour when the sun shone upon them; its wooden gables, though much decayed, showed how masterly they had been carved of old; its stone mullioned windows were quaintly shaped; and altogether, with its great red-brick chimney stacks, its old-fashioned garden with its curiously shaped box and yew trees, it formed a picture delightful to look upon.

How charming are these old-world homes, unnoted and unknown, yet, for all, they each possess their little histories, their unwritten romances, their unrecorded traditions. Not a few, even in these days of steam and electricity, are reputed to be haunted, and still, in this matter-of-fact day, many a