"Well, you'll have to make haste and learn, then," continued Ethelbertha, "because you won't be able to walk out with your young man, you'll have to swim out. We're not going to live in a house any more. We're going to live on a boat in the middle of the river." Ethelbertha's chief object in life at this period was to surprise and shock Amenda, and her chief sorrow that she had never succeeded in doing so. She had hoped great things from this announcement, but the girl remained unmoved. "Oh, are you, mum," she replied; and went on to speak of other matters. I believe the result would have been the same if we had told her we were going to live in a balloon. I do not know how it was, I am sure. Amenda was always most respectful in her manner. But she had a knack of making Ethelbertha and myself feel that we were a couple of children, playing at being grown up and married, and that she was humouring us. Amenda stayed with us for nearly five years--until the milkman, having saved up sufficient to buy a "walk" of his own, had become practicable--but her attitude towards us never changed. Even when we came to be really important married people, the proprietors of a "family," it was evident that she merely considered we had gone a step further in the game, and were playing now at being fathers and mothers. By some subtle process she contrived to imbue the baby also with this idea. The child never seemed to me to take either of us quite seriously. She would play with us, or join with us in light conversation; but when it came to the serious affairs of life, such as bathing or feeding, she preferred her nurse. Ethelbertha attempted to take her out in the perambulator one morning, but the child would not hear of it for a moment. "It's all right, baby dear," explained Ethelbertha soothingly. "Baby's going out with mamma this morning." "Oh no, baby ain't," was baby's rejoinder, in effect if not in words. "Baby don't take a hand in experiments--not this baby. I don't want to be upset or run over." Poor Ethel! I shall never forget how heart-broken she was. It was the want of confidence that wounded her. But these are reminiscences of other days, having no connection with the days of which I am--or should be--writing; and to wander from one matter to another is, in a teller of tales, a grievous sin, and a growing custom much to be condemned. Therefore I will close my eyes to all other memories, and endeavour to see only that little white and green houseboat by the ferry, which was the scene of our future collaborations. Houseboats then were not built to the scale of Mississippi steamers, but this boat was a small one, even for that primitive age. The man from whom we hired it described it as "compact." The man to whom, at the end of the first month, we tried to sub-let it, characterised it as "poky." In our letters we traversed this definition. In our hearts we agreed with it.