The thousands of workaday souls who pass this spot daily in their whirl out and in the great city may catch all these glimpses of shade and sunlight over the edges of their journals, and any one of them living near the city's centre, with a stout pair of legs in his knickerbockers and the breath of the morning in his heart, can reach it afoot any day before breakfast; and yet not one in a hundred knows that this ideal nook exists. Even this small percentage would be apt to tell of the delights of Devonshire and of the charm of the upper Thames, with its tall rushes and low-thatched houses and quaint bridges, as if the picturesque ended there; forgetting that right here at home there wanders many a stream with its breast all silver that the trees courtesy to as it sings through meadows waist-high in lush grass,--as exquisite a picture as can be found this beautiful land over. So, this being an old tramping-ground of mine, I have left the station with its noise and dust behind me this lovely morning in June, have stopped long enough to twist a bunch of sweet peas through the garden fence, and am standing on the bank waiting for some sign of life at Madame Laguerre's. I discover that there is no boat on my side of the stream. But that is of no moment. On the other side, within a biscuit's toss, so narrow is it, there are two boats; and on the landing-wharf, which is only a few planks wide, supporting a tumble-down flight of steps leading to a vine-covered terrace above, rest the oars. I lay my traps down on the bank and begin at the top of my voice:-- "Madame Laguerre! Madame Laguerre! Send Lucette with the boat." For a long time there is no response. A young girl drawing water a short distance below, hearing my cries, says she will come; and some children above, who know me, begin paddling over. I decline them all. Experience tells me it is better to wait for madame. In a few minutes she pushes aside the leaves, peers through, and calls out:-- "Ah! it is that horrible painter. Go away! I have nothing for you. You are hungry again that you come?" "Very, madame. Where is Lucette?" "Lucette! Lucette! It is always Lucette. Lu-c-e-t-t-e!" This in a shrill key. "It is the painter. Come quick." I have known Lucette for years, even when she was a barefooted little tangle-hair, peeping at me with her great brown eyes from beneath her ragged straw hat. She wears high-heeled slippers now, and sometimes on Sundays dainty silk stockings, and her hair is braided down her back, little French Marguérite that she is, and her hat is never ragged any more, nor her hair tangled. Her eyes, though, are still the same velvety, half-drooping eyes, always opening and shutting and never still.