ing to decay; and on the river itself
lies, swaying to and fro, a small punt in the very last stages of
decline. It is a very terrible little boat, quite at death's door, and
might have had those lines of Dante's painted upon it without libel:

"Abandon hope, all ye who enter here."

But Monica, in happy ignorance of rotting timbers, thinks only of the
joy she felt last evening when the discovery of this demoralized
treasure was made. In the mouldering boat-house she had found it, and so
had claimed it for her own.

She had told no one of her secret, not even Kit, who is, as a rule, her
prime minister, her confidante, and her shadow. She has, indeed, had
great difficulty in escaping from "her shadow" just now, but after much
diplomatic toil had managed it. To find herself upon the calm and gentle
river, to dream there her own sweet thoughts beneath the kindly shade of
the pollard willows, to glide with the stream and bask in the sunlight
_all alone_, has been her desire since yester-eve.

To-morrow, if to-day proves successful and her rowing does not fail her,
of which she has had some practice during the last two years of her
life, she will tell Kit and Terry all about it, and let them share her
pleasure. But to-day is her own.

The boat is connected with the shore by a rope tied round the stump of a
tree by most unskilful hands. Flinging her flowers into the punt, she
strives diligently to undo the knot that she herself had made the night
before, but strives in vain. The hard rope wounds her tender hands and
vexes her gentle soul.

She is still struggling with it, and already a little pained frown has
made a wrinkle on her smooth brow, when another boat shoots from under
the willows and gains the little landing-place, with its pebbly beach,
that belongs equally to Coole Castle and to Moyne.

This new boat is a tremendous improvement on our heroine's. It is the
smartest little affair possible, and as safe as a church,--safer,
indeed, as times go now. Not that there is anything very elaborate about
it, but it is freshly painted, and there are cushions in it, and all
over it a suppressed air of luxury.

Besides the cushions, there is something else in it, too,--a young man
of about six and twenty, who steps lightly on to the bank, though it is
a miracle he doesn't lose his footing and come ignominiously to the
ground, so bent is his gaze on the gracious little figure at the other
side of the boundary-fence s