great house with its Doric facade, which
the eighteenth century had raised above the quiet cell of the
Minchampstead recluses.

"It is very ugly," said Stangrave; and truly.

"Comfortable enough, though; and, as somebody said, people live inside
their houses, and not outside 'em. You should see the pictures there,
though, while you're in the country. I can show you one or two, too, I
hope. Never grudge money for good pictures. The pleasantest furniture
in the world, as long as you keep them; and if you're tired of them,
always fetch double their price."

After Minchampstead, the rail leaves the sands and clays, and turns up
between the chalk hills, along the barge river which it has rendered
useless, save as a supernumerary trout-stream; and then along Whit,
now flowing clearer and clearer, as we approach its springs amid the
lofty clowns. On through more water-meadows, and rows of pollard
willow, and peat-pits crested with tall golden reeds, and still
dykes,--each in summer a floating flower-bed; while Stangrave looks
out of the window, his face lighting up with curiosity.

"How perfectly English! At least, how perfectly un-American! It is
just Tennyson's beautiful dream--"

'On either side the river lie
Long fields, of barley and of rye,
Which clothe the wold and meet the sky,
And through the field the stream runs by,
To many towered Camelot.'

"Why, what is this?" as they stop again at a station, where the board
bears, in large letters, "Shalott."

"Shalott? Where are the

'Four grey walls, and four grey towers,'

which overlook a space of flowers?"

There, upon the little island, are the castle-ruins, now converted
into a useful bone-mill. "And the lady?--is that she?"

It was only the miller's daughter, fresh from a boarding-school,
gardening in a broad straw-hat.

"At least," said Claude, "she is tending far prettier flowers than
ever the lady saw; while the lady herself, instead of weaving and
dreaming, is reading Miss Young's novels, and becoming all the wiser
thereby, and teaching poor children in Hemmelford National School."

"And where is her fairy knight," asked Stangrave, "whom one half hopes
to see riding down from that grand old house which sulks there
above among the beech-woods as if frowning on all the change and
civilisation below!"

"You do old Sidricstone injustice. Vieuxbois descends from thence,
now-a-days, to lecture at mechanics' institutes, instead of the fairy