But he did not find it in the boat, though he turned up the carpet and even took up the boards to look. And then an extremely miserable little boy began to search for an amethyst ring in all sorts of impossible places, indoors and out. You know the hopeless way in which you look for things that you know perfectly well you will never find, the borrowed penknife that you dropped in the woods, for instance, or the week's pocket-money which slipped through that hole in your pocket as you went to the village to spend it. The servants gave him his meals and told him to cheer up. But cheering up and Kenneth were, for the time, strangers. People in books never can eat when they are in trouble, but I have noticed myself that if the trouble has gone on for some hours, eating is really rather a comfort. You don't enjoy eating so much as usual, perhaps, but at any rate it is something to do, and takes the edge off your sorrow for a short time. And cook was sorry for Kenneth and sent him up a very nice dinner and a very nice tea. Roast chicken and gooseberry pie the dinner was, and for tea there was cake with almond icing on it. The sun was very low when he went back wearily to have one more look in the boat for that detestable amethyst ring. Of course it was not there. And the picnic party would be home soon. And he really did not know what his aunt would do to him. 'Shut me up in a dark cupboard, perhaps,' he thought gloomily, 'or put me to bed all day to-morrow. Or give me lines to write out, thousands, and thousands, and thousands, and thousands, and thousands, of them.' The boat, set in motion by his stepping into it, swung out to the full length of its rope. The sun was shining almost level across the water. It was a very still evening, and the reflections of the trees and of the house were as distinct as the house and the trees themselves. And the water was unusually clear. He could see the fish swimming about, and the sand and pebbles at the bottom of the moat. How clear and quiet it looked down there, and what fun the fishes seemed to be having. 'I wish I was a fish,' said Kenneth. 'Nobody punishes _them_ for taking rings they _didn't_ take.' And then suddenly he saw the ring itself, lying calm, and quiet, and round, and shining, on the smooth sand at the bottom of the moat. He reached for the boat-hook and leaned over the edge of the boat trying to get up the ring on the boat-hook's point. Then there was a splash. 'Good gracious! I wonder what that is?' said cook in the kitchen, and dropped the saucepan with the welsh rabbit in it which she had just made for kitchen supper. Kenneth had leaned out too far over the edge of the boat, the boat had suddenly decided to go the other way, and Kenneth had fallen into the water.