“I saw in one as pretty a young woman as ever I beheld in my life, dark hair and what your Sir Richard calls violet eyes, an uncommon combination, her dress merely so-so, and the persons with her of no condition. What’s all this preamble then? says Kitty. Who cares for the rascality that takes the air in skiffs on the Thames? Well, but wait, Kitty! I saw her glance at Bas, and as plain as possible she blushed up to her eyes and turned her head away. I can’t be sure if he saluted her or no for my eye was fixed on her at the moment, but I saw her speak to the watermen and they rowed ahead of us. She had an old woman with her for duenna, and an elderly man for cargo. Nothing, you’ll say, but listen. Later in the day we moored by one of the aits in the river, and ate our refreshments under the willows. And sudden, from t’other side of the island arose the most delicious warbling. Larks my dear Kitty, nightingales, ’twas like a whole choir of them singing clear as dew drops. We all hushed our breath to listen, poor Mrs. Sandford entirely out-piped, and the sound ringing over the water as if the sirens was singing. I turned that Bas might join in my delight, and, O Kitty, ’twas more than music that caused his disorder. I noted a kind of—How to describe it?—consciousness. Not a blush nor a tremor (men don’t do the like!) but, in a word, I knew ’twas not merely the singing—‘I attempt from Love’s sickness to fly,’ but something deeper. She sang again with ravishing sweetness the chief soprano air from Mr. Handel’s opera, ‘King Richard the First,’ and I protest the very leaves hung silent till she ended. Her boat then put out and crost ours and behold! the same pretty young woman I saw before, singing as if to delight herself, for certainly neither of her companions, had souls for music. She stopt instantly on seeing us and looked away, and so it past off, but, Kitty, we landed on the island and wandered hither and thither, and though ’tis small there was opportunity for any lover. But Bas was always concerned with Mrs. Sandford or Lady Mary unless I had another of the company and then was assiduous in his gallantries at once. Kitty, couldn’t I read him like a book? “I needed no telling that what he wished so passionately to say a few days since he did not now desire. Nor need I tell my Kitty neither that this being so I flirted and laughed and jested with Colonel Mainwaring until my throat was sore and my lips like to crack from smiling. A hateful—a horrid day! It should have rained waterspouts and blown hurricanes to please my humour and instead the birds sang in a fair sunshine and the river smiled back at a sky as blue. “Unfeeling capricious nature!