us burden of river
flowers and hot-house fruits, champagne in old Bohemian mugs, ices to be
dug from crystal troughs with silver trowels, all these heterodoxies
accentuated the bizarrerie which made "The Raft" such an unique and
enviable lounging place.

Among the guests were three painters, a peer, a novelist, an actress of
note, and one or two women whose beauty was, if not classical, at least
effervescent and exhilarating. Merry talk prevailed as a matter of
course, and bets were freely exchanged on the prospects of the crews.

"I hope to-morrow won't be a pelting day like last year; it was
ghastly," said one of the belles to Sir Henry Rolleston.

"I didn't find it ghastly," he chuckled; "but then I wasn't at Henley.
It was my wedding day."

"Lucky is the bridegroom that the rain rains on seems to be your version
of the proverb," chirruped his companion.

"We've been lucky enough, sun or no sun," he said, looking across at his
wife, whose lovely face wore a decidedly bored expression.

She was being worried by the peer, who, on the
"if-you-want-a-thing-well-done-do-it-yourself" principle, was vaunting
his own attitude towards the agricultural question.

"I never had such a wretched time," went on the beauty, "we were moored
higher up last year, by the island, near where you are now. But it
wasn't all the rain, it was poor Kelly's accident--you knew him, Basil
Kelly? Drowned, poor fellow, in the dark--canoe washed ashore in the
morning."

"Hush," exclaimed Sir Harry, looking across the table and lowering his
voice. "I never knew the poor fellow, but my wife did; they were boy and
girl chums for years. He was master at the Grammar School near her, and
a capital oar."

"That's what I couldn't make out. Did you see what the papers said?"

"The papers were purposely kept from us. It was too deplorable a subject
to be mooted on our wedding day."

"Did she ever know?"

"Yes, later, and bore it very well. She was indignant at the suggestion
of suicide, but has never alluded to the subject since."

"Harry," called Lady Rolleston from the opposite side, "Sir Eustace
wants to know why you moored so far up?"

"Oh," he replied, "partly because I was a bit late and partly because
we're best out of the thick of it. I enjoy seeing the start almost as
much as the finish."

"We have the Club grounds to go to if we like," explained Lady
Rolleston, as they mounted to the balcony where the thrumming of guitars
had alr