Thus dwelling in love, united in every plan and pursuit, our time fairly divided between diligent work and healthful recreation amid the delights of rural life, do you marvel that I call this period my two shortest years? Had no previous circumstances given tenfold brilliancy to these lights by casting a depth of black shadow behind them, or no menacing future hung over the present enjoyment, still there was enough to make it indeed an oasis; but it was more. I cannot doubt that the Lord mercifully gave me a foreboding of what was to come, in the intolerable anguish of what seemed to be but a very short parting, with a delightful prospect of renewed domestic comfort just beyond. Yet so it was: I almost died under the trial of that farewell; and for three weeks before, and as long after, I never had a night's rest. Visions of terror were constantly before me, among which a scene of drowning was so perpetually recurring that I have often started from my bed under the vivid impression. This was the more strange because we had always been so fearlessly fond of the water: in our early days we had a little boat, just big enough for him to row and me to steer, in which we used to take excursions on the river Wensum, and never thought of danger. At Sandhurst too we were frequently upon the lake, and had both become familiarized with ocean, until of all perils those of the water were least likely to daunt me, either for myself or him: yet in most imminent peril we had once been placed; and at this time it would recur to my memory with tormenting frequency. I was about seven years old, and he though younger was much the larger of the two, a stout hearty boy, and I a very frail delicate little creature, thanks to the doctors and their pet drug. Our parents went out for a day's excursion with a friend, and of course we accompanied them. The place was one celebrated for good fishing, and the gentlemen having enjoyed a long morning's sport, remained in the house with my mother, sending us out to play. We had strict charge not to go too near the water, nor on any account to get into a boat, of which there were several on the river. We strolled about, and at last came to the brink of this river, to admire a barge or wherry which lay close to the little pier; for it was a public ferry, and the depth very great. A small boat just by attracted my brother's attention, who wished to get into it, until I reminded him of the prohibition, when he said, "I wont get into it, Char., but I will sit down here and put my two feet in the little boat." He did so: the boat moved, and in his alarm trying to rise, he fell and disappeared.