Sculling on towards the lock, Frank Vanguard was content to leave his own questions unanswered, and abandon himself to the claims of his companion and the fascination of the hour. With her it was different. Young in years, Miss Ross was yet an old stager in that broad road between the roses, along which it is all down hill. She had travelled it many a time, usually at her own pace, and, so to speak, with horses perfectly well broke. She knew, none better, each smiling nook, each romantic peep of the country on either side,--this awkward turn, that comfortable resting-place, when to put the drag on with judicious caution, where to make the most of her ground at a gallop. She liked to feel her blood stir to the old familiar pastime once more, liked it none the worse that the team was getting out of her hand, the pace no longer at her own control. All the while it was no more the real Frank Vanguard who excited these welcome sensations in her ill-regulated mind than it was Uncle Joseph, or young Goldthred, or Punch! Men and women, we are but children in our dearest dreams, and Jin was no wiser than the rest of us. She had dressed her doll in the gaudy habiliments that suited her own taste, and persuaded herself the creation of her fancy was a tangible and existing truth. Frank Vanguard seemed at present her ideal of the robust Scandinavian, polished up a little and modernised, of course. It would be a duty, she considered, to sacrifice him in accordance with her principles of manslaughter. It would be a pleasure to watch the tortures of her victim at the stake. Perhaps, after all, she would grant him a milder punishment than the rest. She wondered more than ever at the northern girl's insensibility to her stalwart admirer. "No," she murmured, after a pause, during which Frank had set the boat going once more; "I don't think I should have snubbed him long, if I had been the Danish maid." "I believe you _are_ the Danish maid!" said he. "You're not _quite_ English, I'm sure, though I can't tell how I know. You're not Scotch, for you don't speak the language. Welsh? No. You're scarcely my idea of a Welsh woman; at least, judging by those I've seen with wooden collars and milkpails in London." "Guess again." "Irish; that's it. 'Kathleen Mavourneen,' 'Arrah na Pogue,' 'Norah Creina,' and 'The Shan Van Voght!'" "You might have added, 'Teddy, you Gander,'" she replied, laughing. "No; what should make you think I'm Irish? I never was in Ireland in my life? I don't mind telling _you_ I'm more a French woman than anything else. In honest truth, I've no country, no relations, no belongings, no friends," and she carolled out in her rich clear voice-- "I care for nobody, no, not I, And nobody cares for me."