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Passages from the English Notebooks, Volume 1. by Nathaniel Hawthorne
page 104 of 362 (28%)
easily have walked into them as not. Having examined these matters
sufficiently, we descended the hill towards the village, meeting parties
of visitors, mounted on donkeys, which is a much more sensible way of
ascending in a hot day than to walk. On the sides and summit of the hill
we found yellow gorse,--heath of two colors, I think, and very
beautiful,--and here and there a harebell. Owing to the long-continued
dry weather, the grass was getting withered and brown, though not so much
so as on American hill-pastures at this season. Returning to the
village, we all went into a confectioner's shop, and made a good
luncheon. The two prettiest young ladies whom I have seen in England
came into the shop and ate cakes while we were there. They appeared to
be living together in a lodging-house, and ordered some of their
housekeeping articles from the confectioner.

Next we went into the village bazaar,--a sort of tent or open shop, full
of knick-knacks and gewgaws, and bought some playthings for the children.
At half past one we took our seats in the omnibus, to return to Conway.

We had as yet only seen the castle wall and the exterior of the castle;
now we were to see the inside. Right at the foot of it an old woman has
her stand for the sale of lithographic views of Conway and other places;
but these views are ridiculously inadequate, so that we did not buy any
of them. The admittance into the castle is by a wooden door of modern
construction, and the present seneschal is, I believe, the sexton of a
church. He remembered me as having been there a month or two ago; and
probably, considering that I was already initiated, or else because he
had many other visitors, he left us to wander about the castle at will.
It is altogether impossible to describe Conway Castle. Nothing ever can
have been so perfect in its own style, and for its own purposes, when it
was first built; and now nothing else can be so perfect as a picture of
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