only this: will you give me a cast up stream, as I want to look
after a lonely habitation for the poor fellow, since he will have it
so, and I hear that there is one which would suit us very well on the
downs beyond Streatley; so if you will put me ashore there I will
walk up the hill and look to it."

"Is the house in question empty?" said I.

"No," said Walter, "but the man who lives there will go out of it, of
course, when he hears that we want it. You see, we think that the
fresh air of the downs and the very emptiness of the landscape will
do our friend good."

"Yes," said Clara, smiling, "and he will not be so far from his
beloved that they cannot easily meet if they have a mind to--as they
certainly will."

This talk had brought us down to the boat, and we were presently
afloat on the beautiful broad stream, Dick driving the prow swiftly
through the windless water of the early summer morning, for it was
not yet six o'clock. We were at the lock in a very little time; and
as we lay rising and rising on the in-coming water, I could not help
wondering that my old friend the pound-lock, and that of the very
simplest and most rural kind, should hold its place there; so I said:

"I have been wondering, as we passed lock after lock, that you
people, so prosperous as you are, and especially since you are so
anxious for pleasant work to do, have not invented something which
would get rid of this clumsy business of going up-stairs by means of
these rude contrivances."