the impulse of the heart rather than the cool dictates of
judgment: her admiration of natural beauty she has herself confessed
more than once during the voyage up the river. But lest more than a
due share of this admiration should be set down to patriotism, I wish
to put it on record that she possessed to an uncommon degree an
appreciative sense of the poetic side of Nature. She was familiar
with the works of Mrs. Hemans and L. E. L., and had got by heart most
of the effusions in "Affection's Keepsake" and "Friendship's
Offering." Nay, she had been, in her early youth, suspected, more
than vaguely, of contributing fugitive verse to a periodical known as
the _Household Packet_. She had even, many years ago, met the Poet
Wordsworth "at the dinner-table," as she expressed it, "of a common
friend," and was never tired of relating how the great man had spoken
of the prunes as "pruins," and said "Would you obleege me with the
salt?"

With such qualifications for communion with nature it is not
wonderful that, on this particular afternoon, Miss Limpenny should
have wandered pensively along the river's bank, and surrendered
herself to its romantic charm. Possessed by the spirit of the place
and hour, she even caught herself straying by the extreme brink, and
repeating those touching lines from "Affection's Keepsake":--

"The eye roams widely o'er glad Nature's face,
To mark each varied and delightful scene;
The simple and magnificent we trace,
While loveliness and brightness intervene;
Oh! everywhere is something found to--"

At this point Miss Limpenny's gaze lost its dreamy expansiveness, and
grew rigid with horror. Immediately before her feet, and
indelicately confronting her, lay a suit of man's clothing.

It is a curious fact, though one we need not linger to discuss, that
while clothes are the very symbol and first demand of decency, few
things become so flagrantly immodest when viewed in themselves and
apart from use. The crimson rushed to Miss Limpenny's cheek.
She uttered a cry and looked around.

Inexorable fate, whose compulsion directed that gaze! If raiment
apart from its wearer be unseemly, how much more--

About thirty yards from her, wading down the stream, and tugging the
painter of his recovered boat, advanced Mr. Fogo.

To add a final touch of horror, that gentleman, finding that the damp
on his spectacles completely dimmed his vision, had deposited them in
the