ed into one of the gaily painted boats
moored alongside and sheered off. Cytherea sat in the stern steering.

They rowed that evening; the next came, and with it the necessity of
rowing again. Then the next, and the next, Cytherea always sitting in
the stern with the tiller ropes in her hand. The curves of her figure
welded with those of the fragile boat in perfect continuation, as she
girlishly yielded herself to its heaving and sinking, seeming to form
with it an organic whole.

Then Owen was inclined to test his skill in paddling a canoe. Edward
did not like canoes, and the issue was, that, having seen Owen on board,
Springrove proposed to pull off after him with a pair of sculls; but
not considering himself sufficiently accomplished to do finished rowing
before a parade full of promenaders when there was a little swell on,
and with the rudder unshipped in addition, he begged that Cytherea might
come with him and steer as before. She stepped in, and they floated
along in the wake of her brother. Thus passed the fifth evening on the
water.

But the sympathetic pair were thrown into still closer companionship,
and much more exclusive connection.

2. JULY THE TWENTY-NINTH

It was a sad time for Cytherea--the last day of Springrove's management
at Gradfield's, and the last evening before his return from Budmouth to
his father's house, previous to his departure for London.

Graye had been requested by the architect to survey a plot of land
nearly twenty miles off, which, with the journey to and fro, would
occupy him the whole day, and prevent his returning till late in the
evening. Cytherea made a companion of her landlady to the extent of
sharing meals and sitting with her during the morning of her
brother's absence. Mid-day found her restless and miserable under this
arrangement. All the afternoon she sat alone, looking out of the window
for she scarcely knew whom, and hoping she scarcely knew what. Half-past
five o'clock came--the end of Springrove's official day. Two minutes
later Springrove walked by.

She endured her solitude for another half-hour, and then could endure no
longer. She had hoped--while affecting to fear--that Edward would have
found some reason or other for calling, but it seemed that he had not.
Hastily dressing herself she went out, when the farce of an accidental
meeting was repeated. Edward came upon her in the street at the first
turning, and, like the Great Duke Ferdinand in 'The Statue