g. If you'd rather tow your boat I will
lend you a line, provided that you promise faithfully to return it. It
is the missus's clothes-line. And you will keep her close under the
bank of the towing-path, and you will pass under all the other lines
which you meet. Do you see?"

"Oh, yes, thank you," said the stranger, anxious to be off. "My name
is Roberts, with Mr. Burnet at the hotel; and you shall have the rope
back again."

"Tie it round the bow thwart, as you have no mast," said Rowles.

Mr. Roberts stared.

"There, stand aside, I'll do it for you. They sit on a thwart and
don't know what it is, half of them."

Grumbling and fumbling, Rowles at length got Roberts across the
lock-gates and put the line into his hands, telling him to look out
for barges and rapids; and then the stranger set off on his return
journey, and Rowles went into his house to tell his wife that he
thought they were a stupider lot this summer than ever they had been
before.

CHAPTER II.

No. 103.

When Mrs. Rowles had put on her best gown and her Sunday bonnet she
was as pleasant-looking a woman as one was likely to meet between
Littlebourne and London. "Going to town" was rather an event in her
life, and one that called for the best gown and bonnet as well as for
three-and-fourpence to pay the fare.

"Ned never will go to see his sister," said Mrs. Rowles to herself. "I
might as well try to move the lock as try to move him. And now that I
have made up my mind to go I had better go, and get it over. Ned
thinks that Londoners are too grand to care for their country
relations. But I don't think Mary is too grand to give me a welcome. I
don't want a fuss made over me, I am sure; and if I run up unexpected
she won't be able to make a fuss with the dinner. And when it is six
months since you heard from them it is about time for you to go and
see them. I am not comfortable in my mind; six months is a long time.
Suppose they had gone off to Australia! I really should not wonder!"

It was nearly time to start on her walk to the station.

Rowles looked into the cottage, and his wife explained to him how he
was to manage his dinner.

"Ah, peas now!" he said, looking at the green pearls lying in water in
a pudding basin. "They don't see such peas as those in London, I can
tell you; and you'd be a deal welcomer, Emma, if you were to take them
a basketful of green stuff. I suppose Thomas Mitchell has his supper
for breakfast when he