This young officer then, stripped to the very verge of decency, came flashing up the stream with steady strokes and strong that brought him alongside of Mrs. Mole's cottage, within a few seconds of Jin's flight from that sanctuary. It is not to be supposed that any amount of pre-occupation would prevent our floating dragoon from resting on his oars to admire the rare and radiant vision: a handsome girl clad in bright transparencies, exhaled as it would seem by an ardent sunshine from the teeming margin of Father Thames. He thought of Rhodes and Helios, and the picture in last year's exhibition. So thinking, he backed water, of course, with the utmost energy. "Captain Vanguard," pleaded a voice, he had thought yesterday not without its charm, "will you be a good Samaritan and give me a passage to The Lilies?" "He would be delighted." Of course he would! To take such a sitter ought to be pleasure enough; but better still to have so good an excuse for calling at The Lilies and finding Miss Hallaton at home. "I've been visiting a poor woman in that cottage," said Miss Ross, giving him her hand as she stepped lightly into the fragile bark he brought so skilfully to her feet. "But it really is _too_ hot for walking back along the road. I'm in luck. If I hadn't seen you, I do believe I should have jumped in to swim!" "I'm the lucky one, Miss Ross," answered Frank, looking very manly and handsome, as with lengthened strokes he shot into the stream. "I'm very glad now I didn't go to the races. It's as well too that I brought this skiff instead of the outrigger!" And Uncle Joseph, quarrelling fiercely with Punch, beheld it all, boiling, chafing, growling, wondering at the perfidy of woman, cursing the imbecility of man. CHAPTER X. AFLOAT. It was a pleasant trip for waterman and freight. Over-handed sculls, light sitter, and buoyant boat, Frank laid himself out to his work as if he liked it; and Miss Ross, dipping her white fingers in the pleasant ripple, looked kindly into the oarsman's eyes, while her lissome figure bent and swayed in graceful unison with his stroke. Steadily, smoothly, swimmingly, they shot on, through deep, cool, silent shade, where overhanging boughs bent longingly towards the laughing waters as they ran past; across broad burnished sheets of gold, where dazzling sunshine flashed and glittered on the stream; over placid pools, translucent and serene, where the drooping water-lily scarce ruffled a languid petal to kiss the lingering current stealing by; under high fragrant banks, rich in tints of pearl and pink, emerald and ruby, of all the brightest, fairest hues that Nature lavishes on the flower, like the gem; past lawn and villa, past water-mill and meadow land, past nibbling sheep and wading cattle, a barking dog, a boat-house, an unsuccessful angler in a punt; and so to a fair expanse of smooth untroubled water, a mile below the lock.