the scent of the pomatum which he had been rubbing into his hair. He was
the only victim, and his small trouble the one little flaw in our day's
felicity, to put us in mind that we were mortal.

Meanwhile a table had been laid in the interior of our barge, and
spread with cold ham, cold fowl, cold pigeon-pie, cold beef, and other
substantial cheer, such as the English love, and Yankees too,--besides
tarts, and cakes, and pears, and plums,--not forgetting, of course, a
goodly provision of port, sherry, and champagne, and bitter ale,
which is like mother's milk to an Englishman, and soon grows equally
acceptable to his American cousin. By the time these matters had been
properly attended to, we had arrived at that part of the Thames which
passes by Nuneham Courtney, a fine estate belonging to the Harcourts,
and the present residence of the family. Here we landed, and, climbing
a steep slope from the river-side, paused a moment or two to look at an
architectural object, called the Carfax, the purport of which I do not
well understand. Thence we proceeded onward, through the loveliest park
and woodland scenery I ever saw, and under as beautiful a declining
sunshine as heaven ever shed over earth, to the stately mansion-house.

As we here cross a private threshold, it is not allowable to pursue
my feeble narrative of this delightful day with the same freedom as
heretofore; so, perhaps, I may as well bring it to a close. I may
mention, however, that I saw the library, a fine, large apartment, hung
round with portraits of eminent literary men, principally of the last
century, most of whom were familiar guests of the Harcourts. The house
itself is about eighty years old, and is built in the classic style, as
if the family had been anxious to diverge as far as possible from the
Gothic picturesqueness of their old abode at Stanton Harcourt. The
grounds were laid out in part by Capability Brown, and seemed to me even