CHAPTER VI.
THE HOLLY SPRIG INN In the middle of the day I stopped at Vernon, and the afternoon was well advanced when I came in sight of a little way-side house with a broad unfenced green in front of it, and a swinging sign which told the traveller that this was the "Holly Sprig Inn." I dismounted on the opposite side of the road and gazed upon the smoothly shaven greensward in front of the little inn; upon the pretty upper windows peeping out from their frames of leaves; upon the queerly-shaped projections of the building; upon the low portico which shaded the doorway; and upon the gentle stream of blue smoke which rose from the great gray chimney.
Then I turned and looked over the surrounding country.

There were broad meadows slightly descending to a long line of trees, between which I could see the glimmering of water.

On the other side of the road, and extending back of the inn, there were low, forest-crowned hills.

Then my eyes, returning to nearer objects, fell upon an old-fashioned garden, with bright flowers and rows of box, which lay beyond the house.
"Why on earth," I thought, "should I pass such a place as this and go on to the Cheltenham, with its waiters in coat tails, its nurse-maids, and its rows of people on piazzas?
She could not know my tastes, and perhaps she had thought but little on the subject, and had taken her ideas from her father.

He is just the man to be contented with nothing else than a vast sprawling hotel, with disdainful menials expecting tips." I rolled my bicycle along the little path which ran around the green, and knocked upon the open door of Holly Sprig Inn.
In a few moments a boy came into the hall.