Richmond Park was the scene of our festivities; and, not only had the vicar caused to be provided a couple of roomy four-horse omnibuses, the leading one of which sported a band, to accommodate the rank and file of the juveniles under the escort of such of their mothers as could spare the time to accompany them; but, those children who had particularly distinguished themselves during the year for good conduct, were permitted to go in the gondola, in which we oldsters proceeded, to the same destination by water.

It was arranged that the "'buses" should meet us at Richmond, where both descriptions of conveyances were to disgorge their motley contents; and, the several and hitherto-severed parties, joining issue, would set about making as pleasant a day of it as could be effected under the circumstances.
A "gondola" seems at first sight an anachronism on the Thames; still, on mature reflection, there does not appear to be any reason why we should not indulge in this respect equally as well as the inhabitants of much- idealised dirty Venice.
Whether you agree with me or not, however, I can tell you that there _are_ gondolas to be seen on our great watery highway--heavy barges, with bluff bows and fictitious awnings and problematical cushions, that may be had on hire for the asking, at most of the principal boating places along the banks from Chelsea to Chiswick.
On first starting, one missed the many romantic associations with which the name of our floating vehicle was generally connected; yet, suggestive fancy could readily supply their place with kindred ideas culled from our more prosaic surroundings.

We had, it is true, no crimson-sashed, ragged, ballet-costumed gondolier to "ply the measured oar;" because, in the first instance, we did not row up at all.

We were a trifle too wise in our generation to pull up the river in a lumbering barge under a broiling sun, and fancy we were amusing ourselves! No, we had a horse and a tow-rope; and, went on our way gaily without exertion! Just you volunteer, for once, to row an excursion party up to Richmond:--you'll enjoy it, I promise you! It is regular treadmill work; see, if you won't afterwards think our plan the best, and adopt it, too, or I'm no prophet, that's all! Our gondolier "was not;" but the mounted jockey who bestrode our towing horse _was_; and, in lieu of waking the echoes with choice extracts from Tasso in the liquid Venesian or harsh, gritty Tuscan dialect, _he_ occasionally beguiled his monotonous jog-trot with a plaintive ballad, in which he rehearsed the charms of a certain "Pretty little Sarah;" or else, "made the welkin ring"-- though what a "welkin" is, I have never yet been able to discover--with repeated injunctions to his somewhat lazy steed to "gee whup" and "gee wo!" We had no "Bridge of Sighs," to pursue the parallel, where the roving eye might detect "a palace and a prison on either hand;" but, in its stead, we could gaze at the festooned chains of Hammersmith Suspension Bridge in all its simple beauty, and see the Soapworks and the Mall on the hither and further shore.

Our course led, not through serpentine canals and past Doges' palaces, gaudy with the lavish adornments of tricky Byzantine architecture; nor could we expect to see "lions" as historical as those which ornament the facade of Saint Mark's.