The postchaise whirled the traveller through the most delightful home-scenery his eyes had ever lighted on.

If English landscape is pleasant to the American of the present day, who must needs contrast the rich woods and glowing pastures, and picturesque ancient villages of the old country with the rough aspect of his own, how much pleasanter must Harry Warrington's course have been, whose journeys had lain through swamps and forest solitudes from one Virginian ordinary to another log-house at the end of the day's route, and who now lighted suddenly upon the busy, happy, splendid scene of English summer?
And the highroad, a hundred years ago, was not that grass-grown desert of the present time.

It was alive with constant travel and traffic: the country towns and inns swarmed with life and gaiety.

The ponderous waggon, with its bells and plodding team; the light post-coach that achieved the journey from the White Hart, Salisbury, to the Swan with Two Necks, London, in two days; the strings of packhorses that had not yet left the road; my lord's gilt postchaise-and-six, with the outriders galloping on ahead; the country squire's great coach and heavy Flanders mares; the farmers trotting to market, or the parson jolting to the cathedral town on Dumpling, his wife behind on the pillion--all these crowding sights and brisk people greeted the young traveller on his summer journey.
Hodge, the farmer's boy, took off his hat, and Polly, the milkmaid, bobbed a curtsey, as the chaise whirled over the pleasant village-green, and the white-headed children lifted their chubby faces and cheered.
The church-spires glistened with gold, the cottage-gables glared in sunshine, the great elms murmured in summer, or cast purple shadows over the grass.

Young Warrington never had such a glorious day, or witnessed a scene so delightful.