aid little
attention to the occasional stirring into life of the dreamy backwater.

Darsie walked to the end of the jetty, stepped lightly into the punt,
and sank down on the soft red cushions. One might not eat one's
neighbour's fruit, but one might sit in his punt, and arrange his
cushions to fit comfily into the crick in one's back, without infringing
the laws of hospitality. Darsie poked and wriggled, and finally lay at
ease, deliciously comfortable, blinking up at the sunshine overhead, and
congratulating herself on having hit on the spot of all others in which
to spend the time of waiting. She could lie here for hours without
feeling bored; it was the most deliciously lazy, drowsy sensation she
had ever experienced. At the end of five minutes, however, the drowsy
feeling threatened to become altogether too pronounced, and having no
wish either to be discovered fast asleep, or to sleep on undiscovered
till past the hour for her return. Darsie sat up hurriedly and began to
look around for fresh distractions.

At the very first glimpse the usual temptation for idle hands stared her
in the face, for there on the jetty lay, not only the long punt-pole,
but also the dainty little paddle which she had handled under Ralph's
instructions the week before. It had been quite easy, ridiculously
easy; the girls declared that she took to it as to the manner born; she
had paddled the whole boatload for quite a considerable distance.
Naturally it would be much easier and lighter to paddle for oneself
alone. The chain holding the punt to the jetty could easily be slipped
from its ring; there was not, _could_ not be, any danger in paddling
peacefully along a quiet little backwater. Of course, prudent people
would say--Aunt Maria would say-- But then if you waited until all the
prudent people on earth approved of all that you did, you might sit with
your hands crossed in your lap for the rest of your life!

Darsie tossed her head with the defiant little jerk which meant that she
was _going_ to do it, and she didn't care, and the consequences could
look after themselves. In another moment the punt was free from the
chain, and was being paddled slowly down the stream. Really, she told
herself, the solid old craft was as safe as a house; so big, so heavily
built was it that it seemed curious, not that its progress should be
slow but that it should move at all in response to the efforts of one
inexperienced girl! Glancing ov