which, the _lady_ toll-taker tells you, is
responsible for the outrage, and not she herself. You may well
believe her; she hardly looks as though she approved of the means
which serve to keep her in her modest position.

[Illustration: On The Thames At Henley]

Streatley Hill, or rather the view from it, like the village itself,
is famed alike by poet and painter. The following quatrain should be
eulogy enough to warrant one's taking a rather stiff climb in the
hope of experiencing, to a greater or a lesser degree, the same
emotions:

"When you're here, I'm told that you
Should mount the Hill and see the view;
And gaze and wonder, if you'd do
Its merits most completely."

The poetry is bad, but the sentiment is sound.

Goring is more of a metropolis than Streatley, but we did not visit
the former town because of the atrocious toll-bridge charge. We were
willing enough to make martyrs of ourselves in the good cause of the
suppression of all such excessive charges to automobilists.

On through Abingdon, and still following the valley of the Thames, we
kept to Faringdon and Lechlade, where, at the latter place, at the
subtly named "Trout Inn," we proposed passing the night.

We did pass the night at the "Trout Inn," which has no accommodation
for automobiles, except a populated hen-house, the general
sleeping-place of most of the live stock of the landlord, dogs, cats,
ducks, and geese; to say nothing of the original occupants--the hens.
How much better they do things in France!

At any rate there is no pretence about the "Trout Inn" at Lechlade.
We slept in a stuffy, diamond-paned little room with chintz curtains
to windows, bed, and mantelpiece. We dined off of trout, beefsteak,
and cauliflower, and drank bitter beer until midnight in the
bar-parlour with a half-dozen old residents who told strange tales of
fish and fishing. Here at least was the real thing, though the
appointments of the inn were in no sense picturesque, and the
landlord, instead of being a rotund, red-faced person, was a tall,
thin reed of a man with a white beard who, in spite of his eighty odd
years, is about as lively a proposition as one will find in the
business in England.

Mine host of "The Trout," silvered as the aspen, but straight as the
pine, bears his eighty-two years lightly, and will tell you that he
is still able to protect his fishing rights, which he owns in
absolute fee on four miles of river-bank, against trespa