‘Then consider your services retained for to-morrow. I shall enjoy the miniature prettiness of the Avon, after the mightier streams I have been upon lately.’ ‘I don’t suppose Lina would like it,’ faltered Daphne, not appearing elated at the idea. ‘Lina would like it immensely,’ said her sister. ‘I shall feel so safe if you are with us, Gerald. What a strange girl you are, Daphne! A week ago you were eager to carry me to the end of the world in your boat.’ ‘You can have the boat, of course, if you like, and I’ll pull if you want me,’ returned Daphne, somewhat ungraciously; ‘but I think you’ll find five miles of the Avon rather a monotonous business. It is a very lovely river if you take it in sections, but as both banks present a succession of green fields and pollard willows, it is just possible for the human mind to tire of it.’ ‘Daphne, you are an absolute cynic—and at seventeen!’ exclaimed Gerald, with pretended horror. ‘What will you be by the time you are forty?’ ‘If I am alive I daresay I shall be a very horrid old woman,’ said Daphne. ‘Perhaps something after the pattern of Aunt Rhoda. I can’t conceive anything much worse than that.’ ‘Papa will be waiting for his game of billiards,’ said Lina. ‘We had better hurry back to the house.’ They were met on the threshold of the conservatory by Mrs. Ferrers. That lady had a wonderful knack of getting acquainted with everything that happened at South Hill. If there had been a semaphore on the roof she could hardly have known things sooner. ‘My dear Gerald, what a delightful surprise you have given us!’ she exclaimed. ‘I put on my hat the instant the Rector had said grace. I left him to drink his claret alone—a thing that has not happened since we were married—and walked over to bid you welcome. How well you are looking! How very brown you have grown: I am so glad to see you.’ ‘It was very good of you to come over on purpose, Mrs. Ferrers.’ ‘May I not be Aunt Rhoda instead of Mrs. Ferrers? I should like it ever so much better. Next year I shall be really your aunt, you know.’ ‘And the Rector will be your uncle,’ said Daphne pertly. ‘He is mine already, and he is ever so much kinder than when I was only his parishioner.’ Mrs. Ferrers shot a piercing look, half-angry, half-interrogative, at her younger niece. The Rector had shown a reprehensible tendency to praise the girl’s beauty, had on one occasion gone so far as to offer her a patriarchal kiss, from which Daphne had recoiled involuntarily, saying afterwards to her sister that ‘one must draw the line somewhere.’ ‘Vernon has gone to bed,’ said Aunt Rhoda; ‘he felt thoroughly wearied out after the gathering at Holmsley, which seems from his account to have been a very dull business. I am glad the Rector and I declined. A cold luncheon is positive death to him.’ ‘Then we needn’t go indoors yet awhile,’ said Gerald. ‘It is lovely out here. Shall I fetch a wrap for you, Lina?’