Clara sat in her place and did not look round, but presently she
said, with just the least stiffness in her tone:

"How shall we divide? Won't you go into Ellen's boat, Dick, since,
without offence to our guest, you are the better sculler?"

Dick stood up and laid his hand on her shoulder, and said: "No, no;
let Guest try what he can do--he ought to be getting into training
now. Besides, we are in no hurry: we are not going far above
Oxford; and even if we are benighted, we shall have the moon, which
will give us nothing worse of a night than a greyer day."

"Besides," said I, "I may manage to do a little more with my sculling
than merely keeping the boat from drifting down stream."

They all laughed at this, as if it had a been very good joke; and I
thought that Ellen's laugh, even amongst the others, was one of the
pleasantest sounds I had ever heard.

To be short, I got into the new-come boat, not a little elated, and
taking the sculls, set to work to show off a little. For--must I say
it?--I felt as if even that happy world were made the happier for my
being so near this strange girl; although I must say that of all the
persons I had seen in that world renewed, she was the most unfamiliar
to me, the most unlike what I could have thought of. Clara, for
instance, beautiful and bright as she was, was not unlike a VERY
pleasant and unaffected young lady; and the other girls also seemed
nothing more than specimens of very much improved types which I had
known in other times. But this girl was not only beautiful with a
beauty quite different from that of "a young lady," but was in all