ey to Wychford seemed effortless, for whatever the arduousness
of a course steadily up-stream, it was nullified by the knowledge that
every time the paddle was dipped into the water it brought him by his
own action nearer to Pauline. A railway journey would have given him
none of this endless anticipation, traveling through what at this time
of the year, before the season of boating, was a delicious solitude. Guy
could sing all the way if he wished, for there was nothing but
buttercups and daisies, lambs and meadows and greening willows, to
overlook his progress. He glided beneath ancient bridges and rested at
ancient inns, nearer every night to Pauline. Scarcely had such days a
perceptible flight, and were not May Morning marked in flame on his
mind's calendar, he could have forgotten time in this slow, undated
diminution.

"O mistress mine, where are you roaming?
Oh, stay and hear; your true love's coming,
That can sing both high and low:
Trip no further, pretty sweeting;
Journeys end in lovers meeting,
Every wise man's son doth know."

This was the song Guy flung before his prow to the vision of Pauline
leading him.

"What is love? 'tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What's to come is still unsure:
In delay there lies no plenty;
Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty,
Youth's a stuff will not endure."

This was the song that Guy felt Shakespeare might have written to suit
his journey now, as he paddled higher and higher up the stream that
flowed towards Shakespeare's own country.

The banks of the Greenrush were narrower than the banks of the Thames;
and all the way they were becoming narrower, and all the way the stream
was running more swiftly against him. It was Sunday evening when he
reached Plashers Mead; and so massively welded was the sago on his
Sheraton table that Guy wondered if Miss Peasey, to be ready for his
arrival, had not cooked it a week ago. But what did sago matter when in
his place there was laid a note from Pauline?

MY DEAREST,--I've had all your letters and I've been very
frightened you'd be drowned. To-morrow you've got to come to
breakfast because I always have breakfast in the garden on my
birthday unless it pours. I'm going to church at eight. I love you
a thousand times more and I _will_ tell you so to-morrow and give
you twenty kisses.

Your own
PAULINE.

Do you like "your own" better