I looked about me at the strangers in the other boats in a way which she was quick to understand. She was shrewd enough.
"My dear Miss Boyes--" she paused. "I mean my dear Molly--I must call you Molly--I really must--up here, one regards the Thames as one's own private river. It's the mode to do--and to dress--exactly as one pleases. In summer, on the upper reaches of the Thames, one is in Liberty Hall. Step into that punt--if it pleases you, just as you are; or if it pleases you, smother yourself in wraps--only do step in. Are you going to pole, or am I?"
"To pole?"
She eyed me quizzically.
"Don't tell me that you don't know what to pole means?"
"But I don't. How should I, when I never saw a punt before this second."
"Dear me, how your rudiments have been neglected. Poling, you uninstructed child, with the stream, and the right companion, on a summer evening, is the poetry of life. Jump inside that boat, and I'll give you an illustration of the verb--to pole."
She gave me one; a charming illustration too. Certainly, lying on the bottom of that punt, amid a pile of cushions while it moved smoothly over those glittering waters, under that cloudless sky, was delicious. And the ease with which she sent us along, just dipping the long pole into the stream, while the gleaming drops of water fell off the shining shaft.
"Well," she asked, "how do you like my illustration?"
"It's lovely! I could go on like this for ever,--just looking at you. It shows off your figure splendidly." She laughed. "And it doesn't seem to be so difficult either."