‘We took off our shoes and stockings,’ she called, ‘and waded down till we found this pool. Martin said he thought he remembered a place where it got deeper, and he was right, wasn’t he? It’s not _very_ deep, but still you can swim round. The water’s full of tiny trout. I’ve been watching them. Martin’s bathing a little further down in another pool. I’ve left my clothes under that bush. You leave yours there too and come on in.’ Judith stripped and waded out to join her. ‘This is the sort of bathing I love,’ she went on. ‘Nothing on and not very much water. You know, it’s funny, I never could learn to swim properly; I don’t know why. The boys used to laugh at me so because I always sank and had to be rescued. I gave it up in the end.’ It was the first time since childhood, thought Judith, that they two had been alone together. How deep was the difference in them? Mariella, naked, with her childish curly head and her unself-conscious body looked much the same now as she had looked that evening long ago when Judith had stayed the night with her, and they had had their evening bath together. And yet, a little while ago, it had seemed so certain that Mariella was profoundly changed: in the set of her face especially,--in the grown-up expression of reserve and sadness,--the whole look of a woman whose countenance has started to assume the cast it will wear in middle age. But now, alight and laughing in sun and water, it had once more the blank clearness and candour of her childhood. Mariella splashed the water, hummed a little tuneless tune, laughed when a stone gave way beneath her foot and threw her headlong into the stream; and the bathing days with Jennifer returned to Judith with a pang. The body beside her now was like Jennifer’s in height, strength, firmness of mould: and yet how unlike! This body seemed as unimpassioned as the water which held it; and Jennifer’s had held in every curve a mystery which compelled the eyes and the imagination. ‘I really wish I’d brought Peter,’ said Mariella, stooping down to peer into the water. ‘He’d have been so excited about these little fishes. Martin and I have just made him a little aquarium and he’s so thrilled with it.’ ‘What fun, Mariella! It must be fun having him to play with. He’s such a good age now.’ ‘Well, he really likes playing by himself best,’ she said, looking faintly troubled. ‘He’s such a quiet queer little boy.’ ‘Well, that’s much better for him than always having to be amused, isn’t it?’ ‘Of course it is!’ She cheered up. ‘He--I s’pose it’s him being an only child and me being fairly busy--and then I do think it’s much better for a child to learn to play by himself, don’t you?’ She echoed Judith’s words complacently, as if they sprang from her own original and profound conviction. After a pause she went on reflectively: ‘That governess of his is a very strict person. She says she must have entire charge of him.’ ‘She’s new, isn’t she?’