industry, but the modern inventions of machinery had left it hopelessly in the rear. The mill-owner had been ruined long ago, and the mill-house, with its great panelled rooms, was given up to the occupancy of the rats, while the disused wheel was green with moss, and the wooden gateway threatened every day to fall free of its hinges.

The young Percivals could not remember the day when the mill had been working, but from a personal point of view they deeply regretted its cessation, for, deprived of the healthy action of the wheel, the little backwater was becoming every year more choked with weeds, until at some points it was difficult to navigate the punt.

At long intervals strange men came to investigate the mill and its machinery, and the Percivals were cheered by rumours of a certain “let,” but as one rumour after another died away without bringing any tangible result their hopes had reached a vanishing point, and they paid 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 

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