This slow poisoner, if painter and mezzotinter lie not who have handed down her portraiture to our times, was peculiarly beautiful, with an eighteenth-century grace, a swan neck, and a sweetness of expression that, if any truth there be in views that take the face as index to the mind, would seem to shadow forth nothing but virtues minor and major. At the “Red Lion” by the bridge we supped and slept, possibly attracted to this particular hostelry by Shenstone’s famous lines-- “Whoe’er has travelled life’s dull round, Where’er his stages may have been, May sigh to think he still has found His warmest welcome at an inn.” [Illustration: EVENING AT HENLEY.] Boating men comprised almost the whole of the company at the Red Lion, and the talk was solely aquatic, dealing with races--past, present, and to come--with sculls and sliding-seats, and all the minutiæ of water pastimes. VII. This morning we rowed through Marsh Lock, struggled through the mazes, snags, and shallows of Hennerton Backwater, and lazed in the sunshine at Wargrave, that picturesque beach and village set over against the flat green meadows of the Oxfordshire bank. Then (for the spirit of exploration grew strong again) we laboriously shoved, rather than rowed, our craft through the esoteric windings of the Loddon River and Patricksbourne, arriving some hours later on the hither side of Shiplake Lock, with the unexpected satisfaction of having thus saved some pence from the clutch of the Thames Conservancy. [Illustration: Sonning Bridge.] At the Bull at Sonning we dined in a parlour gay with geraniums, with windows shaded by vines and creepers, with old-fashioned fire-place surmounted by a huge stuffed fish--a typical river-side inn--and thereafter rowed up from Sonning to Reading, where, by the filthy Kennet side, we left our boat for return to its owner, in the usual Thames-side practice. We came to Reading prepared for anything but charm in that town of biscuits, and we were not inclined to alter our ready-made opinion upon sight of it. We passed through “double-quick,” leaving the last of the town as late as 8.30. He who runs may read, perhaps, if the type be sufficiently large; but I don’t think he would find it possible to write: we did not, and so this book must go forth lacking a description of Reading. The train that carried us from this town of almost metropolitan savour jogged along in most leisurely fashion past Mortimer Stratfield, and finally brought up at Basingstoke, where we went to bed with what haste we might. VIII.