something to say about books,
yet they were not great readers, considering the refinement of their
manners and the great amount of leisure which they obviously had. In
fact, when Dick, especially, mentioned a book, he did so with an air of a
man who has accomplished an achievement; as much as to say, "There, you
see, I have actually read that!"

The evening passed all too quickly for me; since that day, for the first
time in my life, I was having my fill of the pleasure of the eyes without
any of that sense of incongruity, that dread of approaching ruin, which
had always beset me hitherto when I had been amongst the beautiful works
of art of the past, mingled with the lovely nature of the present; both
of them, in fact, the result of the long centuries of tradition, which
had compelled men to produce the art, and compelled nature to run into
the mould of the ages. Here I could enjoy everything without an
afterthought of the injustice and miserable toil which made my leisure;
the ignorance and dulness of life which went to make my keen appreciation
of history; the tyranny and the struggle full of fear and mishap which
went to make my romance. The only weight I had upon my heart was a vague
fear as it drew toward bed-time concerning the place wherein I should
wake on the morrow: but I choked that down, and went to bed happy, and in
a very few moments was in a dreamless sleep.

CHAPTER XXI: GOING UP THE RIVER

When I did wake, to a beautiful sunny morning, I leapt out of bed with my
over-night apprehension still clinging to me, which vanished delightfully
however in a moment as I looked around my little sleeping chamber and saw
the pale but pure-coloured figures painted on the plaster of the wall,
with verses written underneath them which I knew somewhat over well. I
dressed speedily, in a suit of blue laid ready for me, so handsome that I
quite blushed when I had got into it, feeling as I did so that excited
pleasure of anticipation of a holiday, which, well remembered as it was,
I had not felt since I was a boy, new come home for the summer holidays.

It seemed quite early in the morning, and I expected to have the hall to
myself when I came into it out of the corridor wherein was my sleeping
chamber; but I met Annie at once, who let fall her broom and gave me a
kiss, quite meaningless I fear, except as betokening friendship, though
she reddened as she did it, not from shyness, but from friendly pleasure,