Down they went through the garden, across the road, and into a field on the other side of it, a beautiful hay-field full of flowers, with just a narrow little path through it where the children and Mr. Norton could walk one behind another. And at the end of the path what do you think they found? Why, a chattering sparkling river, running along over hundreds and thousands of brown and green pebbles, so fast that it seemed to be trying to catch the birds as they skimmed across it. The children had never seen a river like this before, where you could see right to the very bottom, and count the stones there if you liked, and which behaved like a river at play, scrambling and dancing and rushing along as if it were out for a holiday, like the children themselves. "What do you think of that for a river, children?" said Mr. Norton. "Very early this morning, when you little sleepyheads were in bed, I got up and came down here, and had my bath over there, look--in that nice brown pool under the tree." "Oh, father!" cried both children, dancing round him. "Let us have our baths in the river too. Do ask Nana--do, father! We can have our bathing things on that we had at the sea, and you can come too and teach us to swim." "Well, just once perhaps, if mother says yes, and it's very warm weather, and you get up very _very_ early. But you won't like it quite as much as you think. Rivers are very cold to bathe in, and those pretty stones at the bottom won't feel at all nice to your little toes." "Oh, but, father," interrupted Milly, "we could put on our sand shoes." "And wouldn't we splash!" said Olly. "Nurse won't let us splash in our bath, father, she says it makes a mess. I'm sure it doesn't make a _great_ mess." "What do you know about it, shrimp?" said Mr. Norton, "you don't have to tidy up. Hush, isn't that mother calling? Let's go and fetch her, and then we'll go and see Uncle Richard's farm, where the milk you had for breakfast came from. There are three children there, Milly, besides cows and pigs, and ducks and chickens." Back ran Milly and Olly, and there was mother watching for them with a basket on her arm which had already got some roses lying in it. "Oh, mother! where did you get those roses?" cried Milly. "Wheeler, the gardener, gave them to me. And now suppose we go first of all to see Mrs. Wheeler, and gardener's two little children. They live in that cottage over there, across the brook, and the two little ones have just been peeping over the wall to try and get a look at you." Up clambered Milly and Olly along a steep path that seemed to take them up into the mountain, when suddenly they turned, and there was another river, but such a tiny river, Milly could almost jump across it, and it was tumbling and leaping down the rocks on its way to the big river which they had just seen, as if it were a little child hurrying to its mother.