d it; for setting aside the hideous vulgarity of the cockney
villas of the well-to-do, stockbrokers and other such, which in older
time marred the beauty of the bough-hung banks, even this beginning of
the country Thames was always beautiful; and as we slipped between the
lovely summer greenery, I almost felt my youth come back to me, and as if
I were on one of those water excursions which I used to enjoy so much in
days when I was too happy to think that there could be much amiss
anywhere.

At last we came to a reach of the river where on the left hand a very
pretty little village with some old houses in it came down to the edge of
the water, over which was a ferry; and beyond these houses the elm-beset
meadows ended in a fringe of tall willows, while on the right hand went
the tow-path and a clear space before a row of trees, which rose up
behind huge and ancient, the ornaments of a great park: but these drew
back still further from the river at the end of the reach to make way for
a little town of quaint and pretty houses, some new, some old, dominated
by the long walls and sharp gables of a great red-brick pile of building,
partly of the latest Gothic, partly of the court-style of Dutch William,
but so blended together by the bright sun and beautiful surroundings,
including the bright blue river, which it looked down upon, that even
amidst the beautiful buildings of that new happy time it had a strange
charm about it. A great wave of fragrance, amidst which the lime-tree
blossom was clearly to be distinguished, came down to us from its unseen
gardens, as Clara sat up in her place, and said:

"O Dick, dear, couldn't we stop at Hampton Court for to-day, and take the
guest about the park a little, and show him those sweet old buildings?
Somehow, I suppose because you have lived so near it, you have seldom
taken me to Hampton Court."

Dick rested on his oars a little, and said: "Well, well, Clara, you are
lazy to-day. I didn't feel like stopping short of Shepperton for the
night; suppose we just go and have our dinner at the Court, and go on
again about five o'clock?"

"Well," she said, "so be it; but I should like the guest to have spent an
hour or two in the Park."

"The Park!" said Dick; "why, the whole Thames-side is a park this time of
the year; and for my part, I had rather lie under an elm-tree on the
borders of a wheat-field, with the bees humming about me and the corn-
crake crying from furrow to furrow,