before me: the row of gaunt figures, lean, flat-breasted, ugly,
without a grace of form or face about them; dressed in wretched
skimpy print gowns, and hideous flapping sun-bonnets, moving their
rakes in a listless mechanical way. How often had that marred the
loveliness of the June day to me; how often had I longed to see the
hay-fields peopled with men and women worthy of the sweet abundance
of midsummer, of its endless wealth of beautiful sights, and
delicious sounds and scents. And now, the world had grown old and
wiser, and I was to see my hope realised at last!



CHAPTER XXII: HAMPTON COURT AND A PRAISER OF PAST TIMES



So on we went, Dick rowing in an easy tireless way, and Clara sitting
by my side admiring his manly beauty and heartily good-natured face,
and thinking, I fancy, of nothing else. As we went higher up the
river, there was less difference between the Thames of that day and
Thames as I remembered 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