EINGWOOD TO FOEDINGBRIDGE. 109 



character, form have vanished into the indistinct 

 distance. The delicate framework of this thing 

 of beauty with its clothing of bright-hued tissue 

 has gone to disintegration and final destruction, 

 only however to enter in a new form into the 

 components of other and immediately succeeding 

 objects of loveliness and utility. 



But we must turn from the bridge and from 

 the actual and suggestive beauty of its immediate 

 surroundings and follow the road towards Ford- 

 ingbridge, taking a peep, however, before we 

 leave, of the prettily-thatched village inn at Ibbes- 

 ley with its front wall garlanded by trailers and 

 its little garden gay with flowers. The Avon will 

 be our guide to Fordingbridge and we follow its 

 stream as it winds through more water-meadows, 

 northwards up its valley. Our way lies through 

 deep lanes under the shadows of Oak, Elm and 

 Ash, but we get glimpses of the heathy uplands 

 of the forest away over the meadows on our right. 

 We presently reach two Ash trees growing on a 

 green mound by the roadside, where another road 

 crosses the one we are following. But we con- 

 tinue the route we have been pursuing and pass 



