"But is not our own Thames, with all its natural picturesqueness, quite as beautiful in its way?" she asked, looking around. "I love it. People who have been up the Rhine and the Rhone, the Moselle and the Loire, say that for picturesque scenery none of those great European rivers compare with ours." "I believe that to be quite true," I answered. "Like yourself, I am extremely fond of boating and picnicking." "We often have picnics," she said. "I'll get mother to invite you to the next--if you'll come." "Certainly," I answered, much gratified. "I shall be only too delighted." We were at that moment passing two fine house-boats moored near one another, one of which my companion explained belonged to a well-known City stockbroker, and the other to a barrister of repute at the Chancery Bar. Both were gay with the usual geraniums and creepers, having inviting-looking deck-chairs on the roof and canaries in gilded cages hanging at the windows. "Shall we go up the backwater?" she suddenly suggested. "It is more beautiful there than the main stream. We might get some lilies." "Of course," I answered, and with a pull to the left turned the boat into the narrower stream branching out at the left, a stream that wound among fertile meadows yellow with buttercups, and where long lines of willows trailed in the water. I was hot after a pretty stiff pull; therefore, when we had gone some distance, I leaned on the oars, allowing the boat to drift on under the bank where the long rushes waved in the stream and the pure white of the water-lilies showed against the dark green of floating leaves. Heedless of the rudder-lines, Eva leaned over and gathered some, trailing her hand in the water. "How quiet and pleasant it is here," she remarked, her calm, sweet, beautiful face showing what a great peace had come to her at that moment. It may not have been quite in keeping with the _convenances_ that she should have gone out like this alone with me, a comparative stranger, yet girls of to-day think little of such things, and she was nothing if not modern in dress, speech and frankness of manner. We were far from the haunts of men in that calm hour of the dying day. Indeed, already the crimson of the sun was fading into the rose of the afterglow, and the stillness precursory of nightfall was complete save for the rustle of some water-rat or otter among the sedge, or the swift flight of a night-bird across the bosom of the stream. The shadows were changing and the glow on the water was turning from one colour to another. The cattle had come down to the brink, and wading to their knees, whisked the flies away with their tails as they slowly chewed the cud. "Yes," I agreed. "There is rest, perfect and complete, here. How different to London!" "Ah, yes," she answered. "I hate London, and very seldom go there, except when necessity compels us to do shopping."