eated against the trunk of a willow on the high bank above her. She
started and coloured. She had forgotten Dick's wild man. She described
him later as the brownest man she had ever seen. His face was brown, the
lower part of it covered with a thick growth of brown beard. His eyes
were brown, surmounted by very bushy eyebrows. His hair was brown. His
hands were brown. His clothes were brown, and he was smoking what looked
like a brown clay pipe.

Hilary regained her self-possession almost at once. The diffidence of the
voice gave her assurance.

"I thought my cousin was there," she explained. "You are Dick's friend,
I think?"

The man on the bank smiled an affirmative, and Hilary remarked to herself
that he had splendid teeth.

"I am Dick's friend," he said, speaking slowly, as if learning the lesson
from her. There was a slight subdued twang in his utterance which
attracted Hilary immensely.

She nodded encouragingly to him.

"I am Dick's cousin," she said. "He will tell you all about me if you ask
him."

"I will certainly ask," the stranger said in his soft, foreign drawl.

"Don't forget!" called Hilary, as she splashed back into deep water. "And
tell him to bring you to dine on our house-boat at eight to-night! Bertie
and I will be delighted to see you. We were meaning to send a formal
invitation. But no one stands on ceremony on the river--or in it either,"
she laughed to herself as she swam away with swift, even strokes.

"I shouldn't have asked him in that way," she explained to her brother
afterwards, "if he hadn't been rather shy. One must be nice to
foreigners, and dear Dickie's society undiluted would bore me to
extinction."

"I don't think we had better give him a knife at dinner," remarked
Bertie. "I shouldn't like you to be scalped, darling. It would ruin your
prospects. I suppose my only course would be to insist upon his marrying
you forthwith."

"Bertie, you're a beast!" said his sister tersely.

* * * * *

"We have taken you at your word, you see," sang out Dick Culver from his
punt. "I hope you haven't thought better of it by any chance, for my
friend has been able to think of nothing else all day."

A slim white figure danced eagerly out of the tiny dining-saloon of the
house-boat.

"Come on board!" she cried hospitably. "The Badger will see to your punt.
I am glad you're not late."

She held out her hand to the new-comer with a pretty lack of ceremo