Of all things at South Hill, where there was so much that was beautiful, Daphne loved the river. It had been her delight when she was a tiny child, hardly able to syllable the words that were meant to express admiration. She had wanted to walk into the water—had struggled in her nurse’s arms to get at it, and make herself a part of the thing that seemed so beautiful. Then when she was just a little older and a little wiser, it had been her delight to sit on the very edge of the stream, to sit hidden in the rushes, spelling out a fairy tale. In those early days she would have been happy if the world had begun and ended in those low-lying meadows where daffodils, and orchises, and blue-bells grew in such rich abundance that she could gather and waste them all day long, yet make no perceptible difference in their number; where the lazy cattle stood half the day breast-high in the weedy water, dreaming with wide open eyes; where the shadow of a bird flitting across the stream was the only thing that gave token of life’s restlessness. Later there came a happy midsummer holiday when her father was away at Ems, nursing his last fancied disorder, and she and Madoline were alone together at South Hill under the protection of the maiden aunt, who never interfered with anybody’s pleasure so long as she could enjoy her own way of life; and in a willow-shaded creek Daphne found a disused forgotten punt which had lain stagnant in the mud for the last seven years, and with the aid of a youth who worked in the gardens she had so patched and caulked and painted this derelict as to make it tolerably water-tight, and in this frail and clumsy craft she had punted herself up and down a shallow tributary of the deep swift Avon, as far afield as she could go without making Madoline absolutely miserable. And now being ‘finished,’ and a young woman, Daphne asked herself where she was to get a boat. She had plenty of pocket-money. There was an old boat-house under one of the willows where she could keep her skiff. She had learnt to swim at Asnières, so there could be no danger. So she took counsel with the garden youth, who had grown into a man by this time, and asked him whether he could buy her a boat, and where. ‘That’s accordin’ to the kind o’ boat as you might fancy, miss,’ answered her friend. ‘There’s a many kind o’ boats, you see.’ ‘Oh, I hardly know; but I should like something light and pretty, a long, narrow boat, don’t you know?’ and Daphne went on to describe an outrigger. ‘Lord, miss, it would be fearful dangerous. You’d be getting he among the weeds, and upsettin’ un. You’d better have a dingey. That’s safe and comfortable like.’ ‘A dingey’s a thing like a washing-tub, isn’t it?’ ‘Rayther that shape, miss.’