However, as we glided up against the tide, in slow but steady progress, by willowy banks and osiered eyots, our boat yawning in and out and requiring a stiff weather helm to keep her course, we often caught glimpses of ivy-wreathed churches, charming villa residences and gothic summer-houses, peeping out from amidst the river-lining trees--with a verdant meadow here and there to break the view, its smoothly-mown surface sweeping down to the water's edge; while, we knew, also, that the stream which bore us on its bosom flowed over stakes and hurdles that our indigo-dyed ancestors, the ancient Britons, had planted in its bed, long before Caesar's conquering legions crossed the channel, or Venice possessed "a local habitation and a name." You may say, probably, that all this is a regular rigmarole of nonsense; but, what else would you have?
It was a nice, beautiful, hot summer day, as our gondola glided on Richmondwards.
We were a merry party, all in all, passing the time with genial and general conversation--and, occasionally, graver talk--as the mood suited us.

The cheerful voices of the children, who were packed as tightly as herrings in a barrel in the bows of our craft, and their happy laughter, chimed in with the wash of the tide as it swept by the sides of our gallant barque, hurrying down to meet the flood at Gravesend.

The larks were singing madly in the blue sky overhead.

Each and all completed the harmony of the scene, affording us enjoyment in turn.
Disgusted apparently with our merriment and frivolity, Miss Spight, shortly after we started, introduced a polemical discussion.
"My dear sir," said she to the vicar, our captain and coxswain in chief, who stately sat in the sternsheets of the gondola, "don't you think Romanism is getting very rife in the parish?
They are building a new nunnery, I hear, in the main road; and they are going to set about a chapel, too, I'm told." "That won't hurt us," said the vicar, sententiously.

He disliked sectarian disputes excessively, and always avoided them if he could.
"But, don't you think," persisted Miss Spight, "that we ought to prevent this in some way ?" "I was going to speak to you on the very point to-day, sir," said Mr Mawley, before the vicar could answer.