If upon being further pressed to know in what _more_ he could serve you, you were well enough advised to make the request to be rowed down the river with him to Chelsea—there to make the acquaintance of his daughter, Mistress Margaret, and the others of his “Academia,” not to mention his second wife, Dame Alice (for whose solid, if somewhat Philistine, qualities you have the highest regard), and Master Gunnel, and John Harris, and Henry Pattieson—with all of whom you already seem to yourself familiar, from Erasmus, his letters—you would find yourself comfortably seated in the stern of the barge (before you had time to enlarge on the reasons, which had emboldened you to make your request), and being borne on your pleasant way down the pleasant, shining Thames. Oh! a very pleasant way, in good sooth! The river covered with barges that carry bright colours, and music and laughter, and its banks covered with gardens that let the evening breeze rifle them for sweetness; the wooded hills that fill in the distance, brave in their new summer greenery, and the kindly sun, the giver of all these good gifts, so loth to leave the sight of them that he sinks but slowly, slowly to his bed in the West! And yet methinks the most pleasant part of all would be yet to come. It would be waiting for you at a certain steps, towards which you might have seen your host, long since, strain his eyes. A group of young things are standing at the top, waving their scarves. Two of them, a little boy and a girl, so near a size that you take them for twins, are in such haste to get to the barge that they are in danger of tumbling right down the steps into the river. You can hear a girl’s voice call at them anxiously, “Cecy! Jack!” and when the barge is fastened to its moorings, and you are mounting the steps, leisurely enough to give your host a good start of you, you look up and see those two troublesome little monkeys held fast by the hands of a tall girl of fifteen or so, and you know by the way her father turns to her, first of all, that this is Margaret. In the meantime your host is being pulled, very affectionately, from one to the other. Margaret’s restraining hand is not strong enough to keep Jack and Cecily in check any longer, and with those two rifling his pockets for barley-sugar, and Bess and Daisy hanging out of his arms, one on each side, and Margaret Giggs a little in the background, and young Will Roper, and Jack Dancey, and Rupert Alington dancing around, one understands why he cares not to be over-careful of his clothes.