A SPORTSMAN'S EDEN. 



journey always should do, making sure of a long 

 day for final preparations, and a quiet comfortable 

 dinner before making the plunge. Even at the 

 outset, the contrasts were striking. One moment 

 you were rattling along beneath the thousand 

 lamps of London, through all the stir and noise 

 of its many wheels and million voices, and as it 

 were the next, the panting of the engine was the 

 only sound you heard as you glided through 

 newly-shorn harvest-fields, calm and still, and 

 white with the dew of dawn. 



Here and there my husband pointed out the 

 vanishing brown wings of a covey of partridges 

 which our train had frightened off the line, and 

 then we pulled up suddenly at Liverpool. 



This is one of the most uncomfortable stages 

 of the journey ; you arrive at Liverpool too 

 early. If after long seeking you find an hotel, it 

 is in deshabille still. The chambermaids in curl- 

 papers are on the stairs, and the waiter looks as 

 if he had only just been roused from a sleep 

 beneath the table. If you visit the ship in which 

 you are to sail, you will find her, too, in curl- 

 papers and the chief steward in an execrable 

 temper. Poor fellow ! he has confidently counted 

 on seeing none of the passengers for at least an- 

 other four hours, and his nerves are not yet 

 braced for receiving them. 



