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32 enjoyed the romance of rusticating, came back to old London.

Our trip to Windsor we enjoyed very much. We saw the Queen's residence there, and from the tower we had a "distant prospect of the Eton College," the celebrated Windsor forest, a curfew tower built in the reign of William the Conqueror which used to toll the knell of parting day, and lastly the well-renowned field of Runnymede. After leaving the palace we passed by Eton College and paid a visit to the "Country Churchyard, where the poet Gray is buried. How pretty the shady lonesome avenue leading to the churchyard, the tree's overhanging the path on both sides and covered with rustling leaves and blooming flowers of spring! The tomb of the poet is in this secluded country churchyard where beneath rugged elms and yew tree's shade the rude fore-fathers of the hamlet sleep under many a mouldering heap.

After a pleasant row on the Thames in the afternoon we paid a visit to the field to Runnemede, and returned to London the same evening, (25th May 1870).

On the 1st June 1870, we went to see the Derby Race. The race itself is nothing more or less than other horse-races are, but the immense—I may almost say incredible—amount of interest attached to it makes it one of the national institutions of England. The excitement among the people is immense, there is perhaps not a man in