poppling, splashing, trickling, dripping from leaves to earth, falling
from bank to rills below, gurgling under gate-paths, lapping against the
tree-trunks and little ridge piles in the brooks, and at last sweeping
with a hushed content into the bosom of Thames. And the river himself was
good for something more than a "stree-um." He was bank-full and sweeping
on, taking to himself on this side and on that the tributes of his
children, from which the waters poured so fast that they came in almost
clear, and the mingled waters in the river were scarcely clouded in their
flow. The lock-men rose by night and looked at the climbing flood, and
wakened their wives and children, and raised in haste hatch after hatch of
the weirs, and threw open locks and gates. Windsor Weir broke, but the
wires flashed the news on, and the river's course was open, and after the
greatest rain-storm and the lowest barometer known for thirty years, the
Thames was not in flood, but only brimful; and once more a "river of
waters."




THE SHELLS OF THE THAMES


Of the thousands who boat on the Thames during the summer few know or
notice the beauty of the river shells. They are among the most delicate
objects of natural ornament and design in this country. Exquisite pattern,
graceful shapes, and in some cases lovely tints of colour adorn them.
Nature has for once relaxed in their favour her rigid rules, by which she
turns out things of this kind not only alike in shape, but with identical
colour and ornament. Among humming-birds, for instance, each bird is like
the other, literally to a feather. The lustre on each ruby throat or