'She is as proud as a queen,' he had once said as he was rowing from Hampton to Searle's Wharf, and lay on his oars as the falling tide carried his boat softly past the green banks of Richmond--'she is as proud as a queen, and yet as timid as a fawn. She lets me tell her that I love her, but she will not say a word to me in reply; as for touching her in the way of a caress, I should as soon think of putting my arm round a goddess.' 'And why not put your arms round a goddess?' said Alaric, who was perhaps a little bolder than his friend, and a little less romantic. To this Harry answered nothing, but, laying his back to his work, swept on past the gardens of Kew, and shot among the wooden dangers of Putney Bridge. 'I wish you could bring yourself to make up to Linda,' said he, resting again from his labours; 'that would make the matter so much easier.' 'Bring myself!' said Alaric; 'what you mean is, that you wish I could bring Linda to consent to be made up to.' 'I don't think you would have much difficulty,' said Harry, finding it much easier to answer for Linda than for her sister; 'but perhaps you don't admire her?' 'I think her by far the prettier of the two,' said Alaric. 'That's nonsense,' said Harry, getting rather red in the face, and feeling rather angry. 'Indeed I do; and so, I am convinced, would most men. You need not murder me, man. You want me to make up to Linda, and surely it will be better that I should admire my own wife than yours.' 'Oh! you may admire whom you like; but to say that she is prettier than Gertrude--why, you know, it is nonsense.' 'Very well, my dear fellow; then to oblige you, I'll fall in love with Gertrude.' 'I know you won't do that,' said Harry, 'for you are not so very fond of each other; but, joking apart, I do wish so you would make up to Linda.' 'Well, I will when _my_ aunt leaves _me_ £200 a year.' There was no answering this; so the two men changed the conversation as they walked up together from the boat wharf to the office of the Weights and Measures. It was just at this time that fortune and old Mr. Tudor, of the Shropshire parsonage, brought Charley Tudor to reside with our two heroes. For the first month, or six weeks, Charley was ruthlessly left by his companions to get through his Sundays as best he could. It is to be hoped that he spent them in divine worship; but it may, we fear, be surmised with more probability, that he paid his devotions at the shrine of some very inferior public-house deity in the neighbourhood of Somerset House. As a matter of course, both Norman and Tudor spoke much of their new companion to the ladies at Surbiton Cottage, and as by degrees they reported somewhat favourably of his improved morals, Mrs. Woodward, with a woman's true kindness, begged that he might be brought down to Hampton. 'I am afraid you will find him very rough,' said his cousin Alaric.