o listen. He
remembered the song perfectly. He had heard her sing it in many
places--Rome, Naples, Syracuse. It was a great favourite with her
mother, for whom the national upheaval of Italy--the heroic struggle of
the Risorgimento--had been a life-long passion.

"Why did Connie never tell us she could sing!" said Mrs. Hooper in her
thin peevish voice. "Girls really shouldn't hide their accomplishments."

Sorell's oar dropped into the water with a splash.

* * * * *

At Marston Ferry, there was a general disembarking, a ramble along the
river bank and tea under a group of elms beside a broad reach of the
stream. Sorell noticed, that in spite of the regrouping of the two boat
loads, as they mingled in the walk, Herbert Pryce never left Connie's
side. And it seemed to him, and to others, that she was determined to
keep him there. He must gather yellow flag and pink willow-herb for her,
must hook a water-lily within reach of the bank with her parasol, must
explain to her about English farms, and landlords, and why the labourers
were discontented--why there were no peasant owners, as in Italy--and so
on, and so on. Round-faced Mrs. Maddison, who had never seen the
Hoopers' niece before, watched her with amusement, deciding that,
distinguished and refined as the girl was, she was bent on admiration,
and not too critical as to whence it came. The good-natured,
curly-haired Meyrick, who was discontentedly reduced to helping Alice
and Nora with the tea, and had never been so bored with a river picnic
before, consoled himself by storing up rich materials for a "chaff" of
Douglas when they next met--perhaps that evening, after hall? Alice
meanwhile laughed and talked with the freshman whom Meyrick had brought
with him from Marmion. Her silence and pallor had gone; she showed a
kind of determined vivacity. Sorell, with his strange gift of sympathy,
found himself admiring her "pluck."

When the party returned to the boat-house in the evening, Sorell, whose
boat had arrived first at the landing-stage, helped Constance to land.
Pryce, much against his will, was annexed by Nora to help her return the
boats to the Isis; the undergraduates who had brought them being due at
various engagements in Oxford. Sorell carried Constance off. He thought
that he had never seen her look more radiant. She was flushed with
success and praise, and the gold of the river sunset glorified her as
she walked. Behind them