ng
went very well. On the following morning it was nearly ten when they
sat down to breakfast, and half the morning before lunch had passed
away in idle chat before the party bethought itself of what it should
do for the day. At last it was agreed that they would all stroll out
through the woods up to a special reach of the river which there ran
through a ravine of rock, called Cornbury Cleeves. Many in those
parts declared that Cornbury Cleeves was the prettiest spot in
England. I am not prepared to bear my testimony to the truth of that
very wide assertion. I can only say that I know no prettier spot. The
river here was rapid and sparkling; not rapid because driven into
small compass, for its breadth was greater and more regular in its
passage through the Cleeves than it was either above or below, but
rapid from the declivity of its course. On one side the rocks came
sheer down to the water, but on the other there was a strip of
meadow, or rather a grassy amphitheatre, for the wall of rocks at the
back of it was semi-circular, so as to enclose the field on every
side. There might be four or five acres of green meadow here; but
the whole was so interspersed with old stunted oak trees and thorns
standing alone that the space looked larger than it was. The rocks
on each side were covered here and there with the richest foliage;
and the spot might be taken to be a valley from which, as from that
of Rasselas, there was no escape. Down close upon the margin of the
water a bathing-house had been built, from which a plunge could be
taken into six or seven feet of the coolest, darkest, cleanest water
that a bather could desire in his heart.

"I suppose you never were here before," said Mrs. Cornbury to Rowan.

"Indeed I have," said he. "I always think it such a grand thing that
you landed magnates can't keep all your delights to yourself. I
dare say I've been here oftener than you have during the last three
months."

"That's very likely, seeing that it's my first visit this summer."

"And I've been here a dozen times. I suppose you'll think I'm a
villanous trespasser when I tell you that I've bathed in that very
house more than once."

"Then you've done more than I ever did; and yet we had it made
thinking it would do for ladies. But the water looks so black."

"Ah! I like that, as long as it's a clear black."

"I like bathing where I can see the bright stones like jewels at
the bottom. You can never do that in fresh