The Thames flows through level pasture lands and, in some places, is so narrow that it seems more like a winding meadow brook than a river, but it is infinitely picturesque with the trees and bushes growing so close to the shore on both sides that their reflections in the clear stream meet and mingle, while their branches dip and bathe their leaves in the sparkling water. Narrow as it is here one would not have the Thames an inch wider. In England more than in most places, we learn the beauty of landscapes in miniature, such as Constable gives us with his own irresistible charm.

Just where the Thames becomes the Isis no one seems to be able to tell us. At Sandford, three miles from Oxford, we were still upon the Thames, and without any notice whatever we found ourselves floating upon the classic Isis near the picturesque Iffley Mill. You remember it, I am sure, and the old Norman church behind the mill. We are coming some day to see it and its beautiful carved doorways. At Culham Lock we passed under a curious bridge, with arches of four different shapes, and soon after we came to Sandford and the wooded slopes of Nuneham Courtenay, which Hawthorne found "as perfect as any

thing earthly can be." Near Iffley, the Thames or the Isis, whichever it is, widens into quite a respectable river. Here the University races are rowed, and barges and house-boats abound. My only association with a house-boat is in Rudder Grange, but these floating domiciles are so well adapted to the conditions surrounding them that it would, I fancy, be quite impossible to have the amusing experiences in any of them that befell the characters in Mr. Stockton's tale. The children are excited over the idea of keeping house in a boat, and I must confess that the idea appeals to my imagination as well. Shall we come here some summer and take a house-boat for a month and learn to know this beautiful Thames, "turf and twig and water and soyle," which, after all, can hardly boast a lovelier spot than by the lock at Iffley Mill, whose odd gables and straight tall poplars are suggestive of a landscape on the Seine rather than the approach to England's greatest university town.

Near where the Cherwell flows into the Isis we caught a glimpse of many spires, and the square tower of Magdalen, and realized that we were coming into Oxford. At Folly Bridge we were met by a curious nondescript vehicle, more like a double hansom than anything else,

in which we were driven to our lodgings. We are really in lodgings this time and most comfortably situated in a suite of rooms which are students' quarters in term time. We have a large dining- and living-room combined, into which our bed-rooms open, and so are quite en famille. Although we enjoy the freedom of this way of living, I have not given up my preference for the sociability of the table d'hôte, which we enjoyed so much in York. Our front windows look down upon the High not far from Carfax, and we enter our lodging through a court that opens into a flower market filled with gorgeous autumnal flowers, which makes our coming and going somewhat festive and distinctly rural, although we are in the very heart of Oxford with more colleges within walking distance than we could see in a fortnight.

Miss Cassandra is here. We met her on the High, where one meets all one's acquaintances in Oxford. She is stopping with friends who live in a lovely country-seat near Iffley, but to-morrow she leaves for Cambridge to join her niece and visit other friends there. She seems always to have hosts of friends waiting to receive her, and like the royal family her advent is heralded in some way even if it does