Dodd and Julia sat, unruffled by the racing, and enjoying
luxuriously the glorious stream, the mellow bridge crowded with
carriages--whose fair occupants stretched a broad band of bright colour
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.
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