somewhat novel, practically converting the gate into a toll-gate, for the moral obligation to tip was thereby made manifest—and why should gates be allowed on the main highways?
After this we crossed a long open common, at the farther end of which we passed through still another gate, that also needed another tip for the opening thereof; then we came to our old friend the Ouse again, which we crossed on a bridge by the side of a mill; just before reaching this we noticed that there was a raised causeway approach to the bridge for pedestrians above and alongside of the road, suggestive of winter flooding. The causeway also suggested an excellent motive for a picture with suitable figures on it, to be entitled "When the river is in flood." It would form quite a Leaderesque subject, taken at a time when the day is waning, and wan yellow lights are in the sky, and a yellow sheen lies on the stream.
The Ouse here is very pretty, clear-watered, and gentle-gliding, fringed with reedy banks and overhung by leafy trees, the whole being rich in colour and broad in effect. Indeed, the Ouse is a very pleasant, lazy stream, and a most sketchable one too. The discovery of the picturesqueness of this river—of which more anon—was one of the unexpected good things of our journey.
Now our road led us, with many windings, through a pleasant land of parks and park-like meadows, wherein grew great branching elms, beneath whose grateful shelter the meek-eyed cattle gathered complacently. It was an essentially peace-
