son," Gideon remarked, and again waited on the
muse, in various keys and on divers sheets of paper, but all with
results so inconsiderable that he stood aghast. "It's very odd," thought
he. "I seem to have less fancy than I thought, or this is an off-day
with me; yet Jimson must leave something." And again he bent himself to
the task.

Presently the penetrating chill of the houseboat began to attack the
very seat of life. He desisted from his unremunerative trial, and, to
the audible annoyance of the rats, walked briskly up and down the cabin.
Still he was cold. "This is all nonsense," said he. "I don't care about
the risk, but I will not catch a catarrh. I must get out of this den."

He stepped on deck, and passing to the bow of his embarkation, looked
for the first time up the river. He started. Only a few hundred yards
above another houseboat lay moored among the willows. It was very
spick-and-span, an elegant canoe hung at the stern, the windows were
concealed by snowy curtains, a flag floated from a staff. The more
Gideon looked at it, the more there mingled with his disgust a sense of
impotent surprise. It was very like his uncle's houseboat; it was
exceedingly like--it was identical. But for two circumstances, he could
have sworn it was the same. The first, that his uncle had gone to
Maidenhead, might be explained away by that flightiness of purpose which
is so common a trait among the more than usually manly. The second,
however, was conclusive: it was not in the least like Mr. Bloomfield to
display a banner on his floating residence; and if he ever did, it would
certainly be dyed in hues of emblematical propriety. Now the
Squirradical, like the vast majority of the more manly, had drawn
knowledge at the wells of Cambridge--he was wooden spoon in the year
1850; and the flag upon the houseboat streamed on the afternoon air with
the colours of that seat of Toryism, that cradle of Puseyism, that home
of the inexact and the effete--Oxford.

Still it was strangely like, thought Gideon.

And as he thus looked and thought, the door opened, and a young lady
stepped forth on deck. The barrister dropped and fled into his cabin--it
was Julia Hazeltine! Through the window he watched her draw in the
canoe, get on board of it, cast off, and come dropping down stream in
his direction.

"Well, all is up now," said he, and he fell on a seat.

"Good-afternoon, miss," said a voice on the water. Gideon knew it for
the voice