At Clifton Hampden, in the season, there is usually a house-boat or two moored among the masses of water-lilies which profusely strew the stream near the bridge, and a more charming spot, away from such "fashionable" places as Goring, Henley, or Maidenhead, could hardly be selected as the anchorage of these leviathans of the upper Thames. The neighbourhood abounds in rural walks, and in subjects both for the pencil of the artist and the pen of the man of letters. One of the most charming "bits" at Clifton has neither been sketched nor described quite so often as it deserves to have been. The "Barley Mow" is assuredly the oddest and quaintest of inns on the river. It lies on the Berkshire bank, in a little roadside corner all to itself. What its age may be it would be difficult to tell; but its high, overhanging roof is thatched and its walls are half-timbered. The diminutive casements, about the size of the door of a rabbit-hutch, admit just enough of light to heighten the interior effect. Broad masses of light are out of place within such venerable walls. The brick-floored kitchen--or maybe it is the parlour--is delightfully snug; the walls panelled darkly all round; the honest raftered ceiling so low as to do away with the necessity ever to stand upon the naked wooden settles to reach things; the fireplace extending across one whole side of the room, the oddest imaginable cross between an old-fashioned ingle-nook open grate and a modern kitchen range; the chimney-piece garnished with many a brightly-burnished pot and pan. No demure Phyllis makes her appearance; but the cider--we are in a great cider country--is nectar. At the back of the inn is just such a queer little garden as Dickens loved to write about. All the flowers were our great-grandmother's, and, indeed, modern daintinesses would sadly mar the antiquated aspect of this typical roadside inn of a day that is long past.