But next morning all was briskness and activity around them—flags flying, coloured awnings being stretched, pale swirls of smoke rising from the stove-pipes, the pic-nickers in the meadows lighting their spirit-lamps for the breakfast tea. The sun was shining brightly, but there was a cool breeze to temper the heat; the surface of the stream was stirred into silver; the willows and rushes were shivering and swaying; a scent of new-mown hay was in the air. Already there were plenty of craft afloat, on business or on pleasure bent; early visits being paid, or masses of flowers, ferns, and palms being brought along for purchasers. Maisrie was the first to be up and out; then old George Bethune could be heard gaily singing in his state-room, as an accompaniment to his toilet— "Hey, Jonnie Cope, are ye waukin yet, And are your drums a-beatin yet, If ye were waukin, I would wait To meet Jonnie Cope in the morning?" Finally when Vincent, with many apologies for being late, made his appearance outside, he found the old man comfortably seated in the stern-sheets, under the pink and white awning, reading a newspaper he had procured somewhere, while Maisrie was on the upper-deck of the house-boat watering the flowers with a can that she had got from the steward. And indeed to this young man it appeared a truly wonderful thing that these three, some little while thereafter, in the cool twilight of the saloon, should be seated at breakfast together; they seemed to form a little family by themselves, isolated and remote from the rest of the world. They forgot the crowded Thames outside and the crowded meadows; here there was quiet, and a charming companionship; a band that was playing somewhere was so distant as to be hardly audible. Then the saloon itself was charming; for though the boat was named the _White Rose_, there was a good deal of pale pink in its decorations: the flutings and cornice were pink where they were not gold, and pink were the muslin curtains drawn round the small windows; while the profusion of deep crimson roses all round the long room, and the masses of grapes and pineapples on the breakfast-table made up a picture almost typical of summer, in the height of its luxuriance and shaded coolness. "This seems very nice," said the young host, "even supposing there were no river and no racing. I don’t see why a caravan like this shouldn’t be put on wheels and taken away through the country. There is an idea for you, Mr. Bethune, when you set out on your pilgrimage through Scotland; wouldn’t a moveable house of this kind be the very thing for Miss Bethune and you?—you could set it afloat if you wanted to go down a river, or put it on a lorry when you wanted to take the road."