‘Look,’ she cried suddenly, as a punt containing a portly and painted dowager shot past, propelled by a weedy-looking youth with pince-nez, ‘that’s old Lady Dombonpoint, the widow of Sir Herbert of the celebrated ‘Aurol for Aching Ears.’ She’s as rich as they make them, and yet she only allowed her son, that sickly-looking youth, half-a-crown a week for pocket money at Eton, and bought his clothes from a slop-shop in Tottenham Court Road. But you know,’ she continued in a whisper, although no one was near,--and when Maisie whispers I know what to expect,--‘she was awfully gone on Blitherington last season, and followed him all round the Park, not to speak of country-houses and restaurants; he had a wretched time till she finally proposed to him at Ascot on a coach. Of course he rejected her, and then she fainted. He told me he might have stood her for a year, but he was sure she was what he calls a “stayer,” and would live to a hundred.’ Before I had time to make any comment on this extraordinary episode in the life of the youthful peer, the Bugg’s voice penetrated to our shelter and we caught the words, ‘I told him he was an idiot to oppose the Plural Dean, and no wonder they call it the Church Irritant if he is a curate.’ And the punt containing the inimitable Ophelia passed on. ‘There!’ said Maisie explosively, ‘that’s a nice thing to have tacked on to me, isn’t it? She’s Blithers’ bête noir; why one day she told him that he oughtn’t to smoke, as it produced a weakness in the pneumatic nerve!’ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I’m sorry for you, but still you must admit she answers the description that a certain paper bestowed on itself not long ago, “Funny without being vulgar.”’ ‘I don’t know,’ said Maisie doubtfully, ‘why I could tell you some things she’s said that--well perhaps I’d better not.’ ‘Oh! do,’ I said, ‘why not collect Buggisms.’ ‘Why not, indeed,’ said Maisie, and thereafter a thoughtful silence ensued. ‘I think it’s about time we went back,’ I said, having occupied the interval in gazing at Maisie’s very shapely ankles; ‘I should like to stay here for ever, but--’ ‘Of course you’re bound to say that,’ interrupted Maisie, as I began to rise ready to pole, ‘but the question is, do you really mean it?’ I was in the act of pushing off when a fearful shock sent me flying into Maisie’s lap, and her parasol into the water. Maisie was just preparing to utter her favourite ‘cuss-word,’ as she calls it, when a cheerful and inane voice from the offending boat remarked languidly, ‘Hullo! Maisie, what do you stick your old hearse in the light for?’ ‘It’s not a hearse,’ retorted Maisie, angrily, ‘and Mr. Cochrane has been very kind and attentive to me.’ ‘Oh! I’m sure of it,’ chuckled Blitherington, for it was he and Reggie in another punt, though neither of them seemed to be punting, and their boat was drifting broadside on down stream. ‘All the world,’ he continued, solemnly, ‘is attentive to its friends’ sisters and cousins.’