’Nursery governess or useful companion.  A young person wishes to hear of a situation in either of the above capacities.  Salary very moderate.  She is a good needle-woman—­Address G., 3 Cross Street, Budmouth.’

In the evening they went to post the letter, and then walked up and down the Parade for a while.  Soon they met Springrove, said a few words to him, and passed on.  Owen noticed that his sister’s face had become crimson.  Rather oddly they met Springrove again in a few minutes.  This time the three walked a little way together, Edward ostensibly talking to Owen, though with a single thought to the reception of his words by the maiden at the farther side, upon whom his gaze was mostly resting, and who was attentively listening —­looking fixedly upon the pavement the while.  It has been said that men love with their eyes; women with their ears.

As Owen and himself were little more than acquaintances as yet, and as Springrove was wanting in the assurance of many men of his age, it now became necessary to wish his friends good-evening, or to find a reason for continuing near Cytherea by saying some nice new thing.  He thought of a new thing; he proposed a pull across the bay.  This was assented to.  They went to the pier; stepped into one of the gaily painted boats moored alongside and sheered off.  Cytherea sat in the stern steering.

They rowed that evening; the next came, and with it the necessity of rowing again.  Then the next, and the next, Cytherea always sitting in the stern with the tiller ropes in her hand.  The curves of her figure welded with those of the fragile boat in perfect continuation, as she girlishly yielded herself to its heaving and sinking, seeming to form with it an organic whole.

Then Owen was inclined to test his skill in paddling a canoe.  Edward did not like canoes, and the issue was, that, having seen Owen on board, Springrove proposed to pull off after him with a pair of sculls; but not considering himself sufficiently accomplished to do finished rowing before a parade full of promenaders when there was a little swell on, and with the rudder unshipped in addition, he begged that Cytherea might come with him and steer as before.  She stepped in, and they floated along in the wake of her brother.  Thus passed the fifth evening on the water.

But the sympathetic pair were thrown into still closer companionship, and much more exclusive connection.

2.  July the twenty-ninth

It was a sad time for Cytherea—­the last day of Springrove’s management at Gradfield’s, and the last evening before his return from Budmouth to his father’s house, previous to his departure for London.