“Look here, let me do something this time, pull or something.” “You sit still, my dear.” “But I should simply love to.” “You shall pull down-stream if you like later on when the bally sun’s down. My advice to you now is to go and lounge in the bow.” “Oh yes, Mim, you try it. Lie right down. It’s simply heavenly.” The boat glided deliciously away up-stream as Miriam, relinquishing her vision of Harriett sitting very upright in the stern in her white drill dress, and Gerald’s lawn-shirted back and long lean arms grasping the sculls, lay back on the bow cushions with her feet comfortably outstretched under the unoccupied seat in front of her. Six hours ago, shaking hands with a roomful of noisy home-going girls--and now nothing to do but float dreamily out through the gateway of her six weeks’ holiday. The dust of the school was still upon her; the skin of her face felt strained and tired, her hands were tired and hot, her blouse dim with a week of school wear, and her black skirt oppressed her with its invisible burden of grime. But she was staring up at a clean blue sky fringed with tree-tops. She stretched herself out more luxuriously upon her cushions. The river smoothly moving and lapping underneath the boat was like a cradle. The soft fingers of the air caressed her temples and moved along the outlines of her face and neck. Forty-two days ... like this. To-morrow she would wake up a new person ... sing, and shout with Harriett. She closed her eyes. The gently lifting water seemed to come nearer; the invading air closed in on her. She gave herself ecstatically to its touch; the muscles of her tired face relaxed and she believed that she could sleep; cry or sleep. 2 It was Gerald who had worked this miraculous first day for her. “Boating” hitherto had meant large made-up parties of tennis-club people, a fixed day, uneasy anticipations as to the weather, the carrying of hampers of provisions and crockery, spirit lamps and kettles, clumsy hired randans, or little fleets of stupidly competing canoes, lack of space, heavy loads to pull, the need for ceaseless chaff, the irritating triumphs of clever “knowing” girls in smart clothes, the Pooles, or really beautiful people, like Nan Babington and her cousin. Everything they said sounding wonderful and seeming to improve the scenery; the jokes of the men, even Ted always joked all the time, the misery of large noisy picnic teas on the grass, and in the end great weariness and disappointment, the beauty of the river and the trees only appearing the next day or perhaps long afterwards.