It was now for me to do my best to capture it, though when I had fastened it to my skiff, it was with great difficulty that I could stem the stream with it, and reach them. Having at length succeeded in this, the instant I arrived, in addition to innumerable thanks, many fair and braceleted wrists were now proffering full and fizzing bumpers of champagne, while others showered various fruits into my skiff. Without any hesitation, I emptied a respectable number of glasses of their contents; and having declined the rest, they were reluctantly withdrawn, with the exception of one. I thought I might as well take that; I looked at its fair and kind donor, and--there was Miss Curzon! As I raised the glass to my lips, I glanced across its brim, and again the same depression of the slender figure--the same expression and mixture of fixed seriousness! Now, then, I at last had a certainty of gleaning some tidings of her. I saw Maberly standing by her side, and, the next morning, I questioned him closely, but warily, upon the subject. "I was rather lucky, last night, Maberly," I observed. "Yes," he replied; "it was no common person who gave you that glass of wine. Do you not think she was very lovely?" "There were several lovely persons," I answered. "You know whom I mean." "O yes," I prudently answered; "she was sitting on a sofa, close to the steerage, and gave me--bless her!--the first glass of wine." "Thank you," said Maberly; "that was my sister." "Then she was a very nice-looking person," I replied. "Don't you recollect, now, the girl who held out the last glass to you?" "Perfectly; but is she the person you admire so?" "Oh! you know, you're near-sighted, or you would have thought so." "And who is she, after all?" "I am not quite certain that I know her name," said Maberly; "but I suppose it is the same as her uncle's, Mr. St. Quentin, with whom she lives there, at the Grange, by Old Windsor." I said but little more, and withdrew, by no means dissatisfied with the information I had gained. CHAPTER X. When I look back at this period of my life, though it must be with a feeling of disapprobation--and when I coldly say disapprobation, I insinuate remorse--let me confess that I still do so with an undeniable leaven of envy; envy at the lawless liberty I enjoyed, not only with regard to my actions, but to my conscience; revelling in a deficiency of forethought and blindness of consequences, as truly delightful for the present, as overwhelming and deplorable for the future. I was not aware that "coming events cast their shadows before;" and, alas! that past ones, leave them. But there was one thing of which I was aware, and of which persons rarely are, at the time,--I knew that I was happy; yet I deemed that this ought not to be, so long as I remained subject to any trace of palpable, or, as I then thought, irrational restraint.