Unhappily for us, however, Fate is a harsh governess, who has no sympathy with our desire for rosebuds.  “Don’t stop to pick flowers now, my dear,” she cries, in her sharp, cross tones, as she seizes our arm and jerks us back into the roadway; “we haven’t time to-day.  We will come back again to-morrow, and you shall pick them then.”

And we have to follow her, knowing, if we are experienced children, that the chances are that we shall never come that way to-morrow; or that, if we do, the roses will be dead.

Fate would not hear of our having a houseboat that summer,—­which was an exceptionally fine summer,—­but promised us that if we were good and saved up our money, we should have one next year; and Ethelbertha and I, being simple-minded, inexperienced children, were content with the promise, and had faith in its satisfactory fulfilment.

As soon as we reached home we informed Amenda of our plan.  The moment the girl opened the door, Ethelbertha burst out with:—­“Oh! can you swim, Amenda?”

“No, mum,” answered Amenda, with entire absence of curiosity as to why such a question had been addressed to her, “I never knew but one girl as could, and she got drowned.”

“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.