We rode by shining clumps of the Portugal laurel, a beautiful evergreen, much resembling our mountain rhododendron; then there was the prickly, polished, dark-green holly, which I had never seen before, but which is, certainly, one of the most perfect of shrubs.  The turf was of that soft, dazzling green, and had that peculiar velvet-like smoothness, which seem characteristic of England.  We stopped at last before the door of a cottage, whose porch was overgrown with ivy.  From that moment I ceased to feel myself a stranger in England.  I cannot tell you how delightful to me, dizzy and weary as I was, was the first sight of the chamber of reception which had been prepared for us.  No item of cozy comfort that one could desire was omitted.  The sofa and easy chair wheeled up before a cheerful coal fire, a bright little teakettle steaming in front of the grate, a table with a beautiful vase of flowers, books, and writing apparatus, and kind friends with words full of affectionate cheer,—­all these made me feel at home in a moment.

The hospitality of England has become famous in the world, and, I think, with reason.  I doubt not there is just as much hospitable feeling in other countries; but in England the matter of coziness and home comfort has been so studied, and matured, and reduced to system, that they really have it in their power to effect more, towards making their guests comfortable, than perhaps any other people.

After a short season allotted to changing our ship garments and for rest, we found ourselves seated at the dinner table.  While dining, the sister-in-law of our friends came in from the next door, to exchange a word or two of welcome, and invite us to breakfast with them the following morning.

Between all the excitements of landing, and meeting so many new faces, and the remains of the dizzy motion of the ship, which still haunted me, I found it impossible to close my eyes to sleep that first night till the dim gray of dawn.  I got up as soon as it was light, and looked out of the window; and as my eyes fell on the luxuriant, ivy-covered porch, the clumps of shining, dark-green holly bushes, I said to myself, “Ah, really, this is England!”

I never saw any plant that struck me as more beautiful than this holly.  It is a dense shrub growing from six to eight feet high, with a thickly varnished leaf of green.  The outline of the leaf is something like this.  I do not believe it can ever come to a state of perfect development under the fierce alternations of heat and cold which obtain in our New England climate, though it grows in the Southern States.  It is one of the symbolical shrubs of England, probably because its bright green in winter makes it so splendid a Christmas decoration.  A little bird sat twittering on one of the sprays.  He had a bright red breast, and seemed evidently to consider himself of good blood and family, with the best reason, as I afterwards learned, since he was no other than the identical robin redbreast renowned in song and story; undoubtedly a lineal descendant of that very cock robin whose death and burial form so vivid a portion of our childish literature.