Autumn often puts one on in America, but it is
apt to be very ragged.
There were a good many well-dressed people scattered through the
grounds,--young men and girls, husbands with their wives and children,
nursery-maids and little babes playing about in the grass. Anybody might
have entered the gardens, I suppose; but only well-dressed people were
there not, of the upper classes, but shop-keepers, clerks, apprentices,
and respectability of that sort. It is pleasant to think that the people
have the freedom, and therefore the property, of parks like this, more
beautiful and stately than a nobleman can keep to himself. The extent of
Kensington Gardens, when reckoned together with Hyde Park, from which it
is separated only by a fence of iron rods, is very great, comprising
miles of greensward and woodland. The large artificial sheet of water,
called the Serpentine River, lies chiefly in Hyde Park, but comes
partly within the precincts of the gardens. It is entitled to
honorable mention among the English lakes, being larger than some that
are world-celebrated,--several miles long, and perhaps a stone's-throw
across in the widest part. It forms the paradise of a great many ducks
of various breeds, which are accustomed to be fed by visitors, and come
flying from afar, touching the water with their wings, and quacking
loudly when bread or cake is thrown to them. I bought a bun of a little
hunchbacked man, who kept a refreshment-stall near the Serpentine, and
bestowed it pied-meal on these ducks, as we loitered along the bank.
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