is, since
you live on the Thames, and moreover row so well that it would be no
great labour to you. Let alone," quoth I, insinuatingly, "that anybody
would be glad to row you."

She laughed, clearly not at my compliment (as I am sure she need not have
done, since it was a very commonplace fact), but at something which was
stirring in her mind; and she still looked at me kindly, but with the
above-said keen look in her eyes, and then she said:

"Well, perhaps it is strange, though I have a good deal to do at home,
what with looking after my father, and dealing with two or three young
men who have taken a special liking to me, and all of whom I cannot
please at once. But you, dear neighbour; it seems to me stranger that
you should know the upper river, than that I should not know it; for, as
I understand, you have only been in England a few days. But perhaps you
mean that you have read about it in books, and seen pictures of
it?--though that does not come to much, either."

"Truly," said I. "Besides, I have not read any books about the Thames:
it was one of the minor stupidities of our time that no one thought fit
to write a decent book about what may fairly be called our only English
river."

The words were no sooner out of my mouth than I saw that I had made
another mistake; and I felt really annoyed with myself, as I did not want
to go into a long explanation just then, or begin another series of
Odyssean lies. Somehow, Ellen seemed to see this, and she took no
advantage of my slip; her piercing look changed into one of mere frank
kindness, and she said:

"Well, anyhow I am glad that I am travelling these waters with you, since
you know our river so well, and I know little of it past Pangbourne, for
you can tell me all I want to know about it." She paused a minute, and
then said: "Yet you must understand that the part I do know, I know as
thoroughly as you do. I should be sorry for you to think that I am
careless of a thing so beautiful and interesting as the Thames."

She said this quite earnestly, and with an air of affectionate appeal to
me which pleased me very much; but I could see that she was only keeping
her doubts about me for another time.

Presently we came to Day's Lock, where Dick and his two sitters had
waited for us. He would have me go ashore, as if to show me something
which I had never seen before; and nothing loth I followed him, Ellen by
my side, to the well-remembered Dykes, and the