"Why, that the Queen should be a widow, same as any one else." "Low fever," said Dinah. "And I've always heard as the Prince Consort had a delicate constitution." "It happened before I was born," said Mrs Bosenna vaguely. "Think o' that, now! . . . And yet 'twasn't the widowin' I meant so much as the marryin'. I can't manage to connect it in my mind with folks so high up in the world as Kings and Queens. 'Tis so intimate." "You may bet Providence tempers it to 'em somehow," opined Dinah. "If they didn' have families, what'd become o' English history?" If any tongues wagged against Mrs Bosenna for wearing the patriotic colours that day, they were not heard in the holiday crowd at the Passage Slip when, with nicely calculated unpunctuality, she arrived, at 11.32 (the time appointed having been 11.15), to be conveyed on board the Committee vessel. (It should be explained here that the aquatic half of Troy's Passage Regatta is compressed within the forenoon: at midday Troy dines, and even on holidays observes Greenwich time for that event. Moreover, the afternoon sports of bicycle racing, steeplechasing, polo-bending, &c., were preluded in those days--before an electric-power station worked the haulage on the jetties--by a procession of huge horses, highly groomed and bedecked with ribbons: and this procession, starting at 1 P.M., allowed the avid holiday-keeper small margin for dallying over his meal.) Mrs Bosenna reached the slip to find Cai waiting below in a four-oared boat which he had borrowed from the Clerk of the Course. A large red ensign drooped from a staff and trailed in the water astern: the crew wore scarlet stocking-caps: bright cushion disposed in the stern-sheet added a touch of luxury to this pomp and circumstance. It might not rival the barge of Cleopatra upon Cydnus; but the shore-crowd, under whose eyes it had been waiting for close upon twenty minutes, voted it to be a very creditable turn out; and Cai, watch in hand, was at least as impatient as Mark Antony. Off the Committee Ship, a cable's length up the river, the penultimate race (ran-dan pulling-boats) was finishing amid banging of guns and bursts of music from the "Troy Town Band," saluting the winner with "See the Conquering Hero Comes," the second boat with strains consecrated to first and second prize-winners in Troy harbour since days beyond the span of living memory, even as all races start to the less classical but none the less immemorial air of "Off She goes to Wallop the Cat." The crowd parted and made passage for Mrs Bosenna to descend the slip-way: for Troy is always polite. Its politeness, however, seldom takes the form of reticence; and as she descended she drew a double broadside of neighbourly good-days and congratulations, with audible comments from the back rows on her personal appearance. "Mornin', Mrs Bosenna--an' a brave breast-knot you're wearin'!" "Han'some, id'n-a?" "Handsome, sure 'nough!"