Upon this, I interposed:  ’Pray, ma’am, don’t imagine that you have anything but sympathy from me.’—­but as I was protesting, having my mouth open, the terrible Miss Alice dragged the laughter remorselessly out of me.

They have been trying Frank’s new boat, Mr. Pollingray, and they’ve upset it.  Oh! oh’ and again there was the woodpeckers’ chorus.

‘Alice, I desire you instantly to go and fetch John the gardener,’ said the angry mother.

’Mama, I can’t move; wait a minute, only a minute.  John’s gone about the geraniums.  Oh! don’t look so resigned, papa; you’ll kill me!  Mama, come and take my hand.  Oh! oh!’

The young lady put her hands in against her waist and rolled her body like a possessed one.

‘Why don’t you come in through the boat-house?’ she asked when she had mastered her fit.

‘Ah!’ said the vicar.  I beheld him struck by this new thought.

‘How utterly absurd you are, Mr. Amble!’ exclaimed his wife, ’when you know that the boat-house is locked, and that the boat was lying under the camshot when you persuaded me to step into it.’

Hearing this explanation of the accident, Alice gave way to an ungovernable emotion.

‘You see, my dear,’ the vicar addressed his wife, she can do nothing; it’s useless.  If ever patience is counselled to us, it is when accidents befall us, for then, as we are not responsible, we know we are in other hands, and it is our duty to be comparatively passive.  Perhaps I may say that in every difficulty, patience is a life-belt.  I beg of you to be patient still.’

‘Mr. Amble, I shall think you foolish,’ said the spouse, with a nod of more than emphasis.

My dear, you have only to decide,’ was the meek reply.

By this time, Miss Alice had so far conquered the fiend of laughter that she could venture to summon her mother close up to the bank and extend a rescuing hand.  Mrs. Amble waded to within reach, her husband following.  Arrangements were made for Alice to pull, and the vicar to push; both in accordance with Mrs. Amble’s stipulations, for even in her extremity of helplessness she affected rule and sovereignty.  Unhappily, at the decisive moment, I chanced (and I admit it was more than an inadvertence on my part, it was a most ill-considered thing to do) I chanced, I say, to call out—­and that I refrained from quoting Voltaire is something in my favour: 

‘How on earth did you manage to tumble in?’

There can be no contest of opinion that I might have kept my curiosity waiting, and possibly it may be said with some justification that I was the direct cause of my friend’s unparalleled behaviour; but could a mortal man guess that in the very act of assisting his wife’s return to dry land, and while she was—­if I may put it so—­modestly in his hands, he would turn about with a quotation that compared him to old Palinurus, all the while allowing his worthy and admirable burden to sink lower