Two or three hours over narrow and generally bad roads for England brought us to the village of Chalfont St. Giles, where John Milton made his residence while writing “Paradise Lost.”  It is a retired little place, mere lanes leading into it.  The shriek of the railroad train does not disturb its quietude, the nearest station being several miles away.  The village doubtless appears much as it did in Milton’s time, three hundred years ago, and the cottage which he occupied stands practically unaltered.  A notice posted outside stated that the cottage would not be shown on Sunday.  But such announcements had little terror for us by this time, and we found no difficulty in gaining admittance to the quaint little building.  It is in the Elizabethan style, with half-timber frame and sagging tile roof.  The windows have small, diamond-shaped panes of leaded glass set in rude iron frames and open on a typical English flower garden.  The villagers purchased the cottage by public subscription and its preservation is thus fortunately insured.  The tenant acts as caretaker and apparently takes pride in keeping the place in order.  The poet’s room, directly on the right when entering, is rather dark, and has a low-beamed ceiling.  There is a wide fireplace with the old time appliances accompanying it, and one can imagine the blind poet sitting by his fireside on winter days or enjoying the sweetness that in summertime came through the antique windows from the flower garden.  Here he dictated “Paradise Lost” to his daughter, who acted as his secretary.  One can not help contrasting the unsurpassed majesty and dignity of the great poem with the humble and even rude surroundings of the cottage.  Milton came here in 1665 to escape the plague which was then devastating London.  His eldest daughter was at that time about seventeen years of age, and there is reason to believe that she was with him during his stay in St. Giles.  We were delighted with the place, for we had seen little else more typical of old-time England than this cottage, which would have been worth seeing aside from its connection with the great epic poet.  In front was the garden, a blaze of bright colors, and the walls were half hidden by climbing rose-vines in full boom—­for the roses in England stay much later in the summer than they do with us.  The entrance to the cottage fronts on the garden.  There is no door next the street, the great chimney built on the outside leaving no room for one.

[Illustration:  Milton’s room in cottage at Chalfont st. Giles.]

We were now in the vicinity where William Penn was born and where he lies buried.  We had some trouble in finding Jordans, the little meeting-house near which is the grave of the Quaker philanthropist.  Many of the people of whom we inquired did not know of its existence, and after considerable wandering through the byways we learned that we were within a mile of the place.  For this distance we followed