smoke cloud left by a passing steamer
three miles distant and more on the invisible sea. When the voices of
the pleasure party were still, not a sound rose, far or near, but the
faint ripple at the bows, as the men, with slow, deliberate strokes
of their long poles, pressed the boat forward softly over the shallow
water. The world and the world's turmoil seemed left behind forever
on the land; the silence was the silence of enchantment--the delicious
interflow of the soft purity of the sky and the bright tranquillity of
the lake.

Established in perfect comfort in the boat--the major and his daughter
on one side, the curate and his mother on the other, and Allan and young
Pedgift between the two--the water party floated smoothly toward the
little nest of islands at the end of the Broad. Miss Milroy was in
raptures; Allan was delighted; and the major for once forgot his clock.
Every one felt pleasurably, in their different ways, the quiet and
beauty of the scene. Mrs. Pentecost, in her way, felt it like a
clairvoyant--with closed eyes.

"Look behind you, Mr. Armadale," whispered young Pedgift. "I think the
parson's beginning to enjoy himself."

An unwonted briskness--portentous apparently of coming speech--did
certainly at that moment enliven the curate's manner. He jerked his head
from side to side like a bird; he cleared his throat, and clasped his
hands, and looked with a gentle interest at the company. Getting into
spirits seemed, in the case of this excellent person, to be alarmingly
like getting into the pulpit.

"Even in this scene of tranquillity," said the Reverend Samuel, coming
out softly with his first contribution to the society in the shape of
a remark, "the Christian mind--led, so to speak, from one extreme to
another--is forcibly recalled to the unstable nature of all earthly
enjoyments. How if this calm should not last? How if the winds rose and
the waters became agitated?"

"You needn't alarm yourself about that, sir," said young Pedgift;
"June's the fine season here--and you can swim."

Mrs. Pentecost (mesmerically affected, in all probability, by the near
neighborhood of her son) opened her eyes suddenly and asked, with her
customary eagerness. "What does my boy say?"

The Reverend Samuel repeated his words in the key that suited his
mother's infirmity. The old lady nodded in high approval, and pursued
her son's train of thought through the medium of a quotation.

"Ah!" sighed Mrs. Pentecost