'Not a word of it,' said Charley; 'that which Linda sees is a song that the heroine is singing, and it isn't supposed to be written by the author at all.'
'I'm so sorry that there's no poetry,' said Katie. 'Can't you write poetry, Charley?'
'At any rate there's lots of love in it,' said Linda, who was turning over the pages.
'Is there?' said Katie. 'Well, that's next best; but they should go together. You should have put all your love into verse, Charley, and then your prose would have done for the funny parts.'
'Perhaps it's all fun,' said Mrs. Woodward. 'But come, girls, this is not fair; I won't let you look at the story till it's read in full committee.' And so saying, Mrs. Woodward took the papers from her daughters, and tying them up, deposited them safe in custody. 'We'll have it out when the tea-things are gone.'
But before the tea-things had come, an accident happened, which had been like to dismiss 'Crinoline and Macassar' altogether from the minds of the whole of the Woodward family. The young men had, as usual, dined in town, and therefore they were all able to spend the long summer evening out of doors. Norman's boat was down at Hampton, and it was therefore determined that they should row down as far as Hampton Court Park and back. Charley and Norman were to row; and Mrs. Woodward agreed to accompany her daughters. Uncle Bat was left at home, to his nap and rum and water.
Norman was so expert a Thames waterman, that he was quite able to manage the boat without a steersman, and Charley was nearly his equal. But there is some amusement in steering, and Katie was allowed to sit between the tiller-ropes.
'I can steer very well, mamma: can't I, Harry? I always steer when we go to the island, and we run the boat straight into the little creek, only just broad enough to hold it.' Katie's visits to the island, however, were not so frequent as they had heretofore been, for she was approaching to sixteen years of age, and wet feet and draggled petticoats had lost some of their charms. Mrs. Woodward, trusting more to the experience of her two knights than to the skill of the lady at the helm, took her seat, and they went off merrily down the stream.
All the world knows that it is but a very little distance from Hampton Church to Hampton Court Bridge, especially when one has the stream with one. They were very soon near to the bridge, and as they approached it, they had to pass a huge barge, that was lazily making its way down to Brentford.
'There's lots of time for the big arch,' said Charley.