the Maple-Durham meads, particularly wanted me and Clara to come and
see him on our way up the Thames; and I thought you wouldn't mind
this bit of night travelling."

He need not have adjured me to keep up my spirits, which were as high
as possible; though the strangeness and excitement of the happy and
quiet life which I saw everywhere around me was, it is true, a little
wearing off, yet a deep content, as different as possible from
languid acquiescence, was taking its place, and I was, as it were,
really new-born.

We landed presently just where I remembered the river making an elbow
to the north towards the ancient house of the Blunts; with the wide
meadows spreading on the right-hand side, and on the left the long
line of beautiful old trees overhanging the water. As we got out of
the boat, I said to Dick -

"Is it the old house we are going to?"

"No," he said, "though that is standing still in green old age, and
is well inhabited. I see, by the way, that you know your Thames
well. But my friend Walter Allen, who asked me to stop here, lives
in a house, not very big, which has been built here lately, because
these meadows are so much liked, especially in summer, that there was
getting to be rather too much of tenting on the open field; so the
parishes here about, who rather objected to that, built three houses
between this and Caversham, and quite a large one at Basildon, a
little higher up. Look, yonder are the lights of Walter Allen's
house!"