She seems to have considered that the first part of her prayer was granted, as the second could hardly be expected, for before the year was out she married Sir Thomas Russell. But on the whole the interior of Bisham Church will not detain the visitor for long; he will care rather to linger in the churchyard and its neighbourhood. It is pleasant to pass up and down by the riverside under the shadow of the trees, to gaze upon the noble sweep of the Thames, and over its fertile valley plain, to seek some quiet spot which commands a view of the grey walls of Bisham Priory and the beautiful trees in its park. Even the village is in keeping with the rest of the scene, and is brighter and prettier than is usual, and this is saying much; for though, as a rule, English cottages cannot compare in picturesqueness with many that we see on the other side of the Channel, the frequent poverty and monotony of their design is often atoned for by the creepers which blossom profusely on the walls, and the flowers which make the strip of ground in front one living posy. But in Bisham not a few of the cottages are picturesque. For some reason or other, partly, perhaps, owing to the absence of mechanical industries, the towns of the south and west of England are commonly, and the villages almost always, more attractive than in the north, and this disparity, as regards the latter, becomes still more marked when we cross the border; for a Scotch village often attains to the extreme limit of dreary ugliness. [Illustration: GREAT MARLOW, FROM QUARRY WOODS.]