above the dark figures clustering on the battlements--and the green
meadows opposite with the motley crowd streaming up and down.

Nor was that sense, which seems especially keen and delicate in women,
left unregaled in the general bounty of the time. The green meadows on
the opposite bank, and the gardens at the back of our fair friends, flung
their sweet fresh odours at their liquid benefactor gliding by; and the
sun himself seemed to burn perfumes, and the air to scatter them, over
the motley merry crowd, that bright, hot, smiling, airy day in June.

Thus tuned to gentle enjoyment, the fair mother and her lovely daughter
leaned back in a delicious languor proper to their sex, and eyed with
unflagging though demure interest, and furtive curiosity, the wealth of
youth, beauty, stature, agility, gaiety, and good temper, the two great
universities had poured out upon those obscure banks; all dressed in neat
but easy-fitting clothes, cut in the height of' the fashion; or else in
jerseys white or striped, and flannel trousers, and straw hats, or cloth
caps of bright and various hues; betting, strolling, laughing, chaffing,
larking, and whirling stunted bludgeons at Aunt Sally.

But as for the sport itself they were there to see, the center of all
these bright accessories, "The Racing," my ladies did not understand it,
nor try, nor care a hook-and-eye about it. But this mild dignified
indifference to the main event received a shock at 2 p. m.: for then the
first heat for the cup came on, and Edward was in it. So then Racing
became all in a moment a most interesting pastime--an appendage to
Loving. He left to join his crew. And, soon after, the Exeter glided down
the river before their eyes, with the beloved one rowing quietly in it:
his jersey revealed not only the working power of his arms, as sunburnt
below the elbow as a gipsy's, and as corded above as a blacksmith's, but