If you take punt at Hobbs’ Wharf, which banks the mill-creek beside Goring Lock; and glide out through some great morning of river-sunshine, under the white willows of “Nun’s Acre,” past Cleeve Lock ablaze with roses, into that long reach which runs lockless between oak and elm as far as Wallingford: (you will find at Molesey ferry a pleasant hostelry yclept “The Beetle and Wedge,” set a-purpose to hearten weary punters ere they pass under the almost ugliness of a red-brick railroad-causeway): and if, having rested at Wallingford, you pole on, by the narrow cleft of Benson’s Lock; and on, over the broad river-highway, through Shillingford; you will come in the fulness of even-time, past over-arching woods, to the vaulted spans of Clifton Hampden Bridge....

Clifton Hampden’s self is a village of honeysuckled cottages, and quiet lost housen of quiet lost gentlefolk who climb o’ Sundays to the belled Church which looks down on Clifton Hampden’s Bridge and Clifton Hampden’s “Barley Mow.” ...

But if you love our Thames, who is the father of England even as the sea is England’s great mother (and these twain mate in London Pool for all the world to see), you will not rest overlong at the “Barley Mow.” Father Thames will draw you on, against his own current, past Sutton Courtney’s foaming weirs and Wittenham’s “Plough,” and the mouth of the “Thame” (which is not the Thames, though it serpentines cunningly through flat fields to Dorchester, where, in an Abbey of olden stone, rest the bones of many a saint and many a Norman knight and dame); and on past Dorchester to Abingdon....

At Abingdon, rest you one night—even as Peter and Patricia rested—yet rest not over-late. For beyond Abingdon (and this is a glory of wood and waterland you shall scarce believe) Radley’s flag flaunts, bright as colours at a girl’s bosom, among the bosoming downs of English oak.... Yet even this glory, Father Thames—if he loves you—will bid you leave behind. It shall dwindle astern as the steady pole dives from your hand and the taut body presses you onwards....

Thus, ere river-afternoon is river-evening, shall you raise the plumed smoke-stack of Sandford Mills; and, lingering not, make Iffley, and the meadow-banks beyond Iffley, and Magdalen Tower, and the mellow dome of the Bodleian Library. And haply you shall see the old-time Oxford of dreaming spires and leisured youth—not Patricia’s khaki-haunted, headstrong, hurrying town....

Oxford passed (and this passing is a sadness, for sloven houses creep down to Thames bank, and Victorian factories blacken the clear stream, and children such as should not be in England dabble thin legs in the mud), Father Thames hesitates among meadow-flats—as you will hesitate between the “Perch” and the “Trout,” neither of which will allure you, for the one is of the beanfeaster and the other (though it was a guest-house in days when Fair Rosamond languished a bow-shot away at Godstone) resounds all day to the drone of the circling ’plane.... Wherefore, pole up beyond Godstone: and there, where Father Thames runs young between flag-flower-stems and faded meadow-sweet and sharpening bulrush-spears, may his river-nymphs be as benign for you as they were for Peter and his Patricia on that windless evening of an English June-time....

It seemed to them that they had scarce left Sunflowers behind; and yet it seemed to them as though not only Sunflowers but all their known life lay so far behind them as to be almost out of memory. They had glided out of life, over endless rippleless water, through endless sunshine, into love’s own land. But no word of love had these two yet spoken....

The fog of the years still hid them, each from each: only now the fog was all irradiated, a mist of sun-motes; and through the shimmering radiance of that clearing mist, their souls, not yet full-visioned, came peering and afraid....

Many times, in those days of river-sunshine, their souls had caught glimpses of each other; touched, even as their bodies touched in the fragrance of the river-nights. But fulfilment and full-visioning had not yet been given. A strange shy tenderness separated them; locking Peter’s lips....

But already, Patricia knew! The knowledge lay deep down in her heart—maiden-knowledge. Her womanhood, her experience, the reasoning powers on which she had prided herself so long, played no part in this secret awareness of love. It seemed to her that she had never been his wife; never borne his children nor tended his house; that she would come to him virgin. And as virgins are aware, so she knew that she would be aware of the time and place appointed for her bridal....