There are voyages on which we all embark unconsciously to ourselves, careless of life-belt or sea-stores, making no provision for the climes to which they lead; voyages that begin with a fair wind, a summer sea, and a smiling sky; that end, too often, in loss of crew and cargo, in shipwreck, disaster, and despair. Miss Ross, though she scarcely suspected it, had even now set foot on a plank which was to sink with her hereafter, and leave her choking in the dark pitiless waves. "_Isn't_ it nice?" said she, taking off a jaunty little hat, to smooth her hair back with dripping hands. "I delight in the motion--something between swimming and riding. I should like to row, myself. Don't you find it hard work? You _must_ be tired. Let us stop here a little in the shade." A longer pull would have failed to tire Frank, who was no mean waterman, and in excellent condition, "But then the situation had its charm," and to rest in the shade with Miss Ross was no unpleasant break in a day's work. She fanned him with her hat, rocking the boat to and fro as it lay under the bank, sheltered by a thick screen of fragrant, flickering lime branches. "I can't thank you enough," continued Jin, in her most winning tones. "I'm so fond of the water, I think I was meant for a sailor. I should like to go on it every day." "I'll take you!" said Frank, as what else could he say? "Every day, and all day long. Shall we fix to-morrow, at the same place and the same time?" He was laughing, but thought, nevertheless, it would be no bad way of spending the summer, while so unfortunate as to be quartered at Windsor. Ah! if it had only been Helen! But it wasn't. So there was no use in thinking about that! "We can't always do what we like," answered Jin, looking pensively into the depths of the Thames. "At least women can't--certainly I can't! Think how I should be pitched into when I got home! You wouldn't like me to be scolded for your sake, Captain Vanguard?" "I think I _should_," replied the inexcusable young officer. "I think I should like to scold you myself, if I had the right." "Ah! you'd like making up again, I dare say!" laughed Jin, and, with that, the black eyes delivered one telling shot straight into Frank's, and were instantly averted. "We'll quarrel as much as you please, on those terms," said he gaily, and, for aught I can guess, might have proceeded to premature reconciliation forthwith, but that she knew the game so well, and checked him at the right moment. "I quarrel with my _friends_, Captain Vanguard," she objected; "and you are only an acquaintance as yet. It takes me a long time to become really intimate with people. I wonder if I should like you more when I knew you better?" "I'm sure you would," answered Frank, rattling the boat's chain, as he prepared for work again. "You would improve me so, do you see; and I am so willing to be improved. You wouldn't be able to do without me in a week."