ply, neither did my father. My mother then quitted the cabin, and
walked round the lighter, looked into the dog-kennel to ascertain if he
was asleep with the great mastiff--but Joe was nowhere to be found.

"Why, what can have become of Joe?" cried my mother, with maternal alarm
in her countenance, appealing to my father, as she hastened back to the
cabin. My father spoke not, but taking the pipe out of his mouth,
dropped the bowl of it in a perpendicular direction till it landed
softly on the deck, then put it into his mouth again, and puffed
mournfully. "Why, you don't mean to say he is overboard?" screamed my
mother.

My father nodded his head, and puffed away at an accumulated rate. A
torrent of tears, exclamations, and revilings succeeded to this
characteristic announcement. My father allowed my mother to exhaust
herself. By the time when she had finished, so was his pipe; he then
knocked out the ashes, and quietly observed, "It's no use crying; what's
done can't be helped," and proceeded to refill the bowl.

"Can't be helped!" cried my mother; "but it might have been helped."

"Take it coolly," replied my father.

"Take it coolly!" replied my mother in a rage--"take it coolly! Yes,
you're for taking everything coolly: I presume, if I fell overboard you
would be taking it coolly."

"You would be taking it coolly, at all events," replied my imperturbable
father.

"O dear! O dear!" cried my poor mother; "two poor children, and lost
them both!"

"Better luck next time," rejoined my father; "so, Sall, say no more
about it."

My father continued for some time to smoke his pipe, and my mother to
pipe her eye, until at last my father, who was really a kind-hearted
man, rose from the chest upon which he was seated, went to the cupboard,
poured out a teacupful of _gin_, and handed it to my mother. It was
kindly done of him, and my mother was to be won by kindness. It was a
pure offering in the spirit, and taken in the spirit in which it was
offered. After a few repetitions, which were rendered necessary from
its potency being diluted with her tears, grief and recollection were
drowned together, and disappeared like two lovers who sink down entwined
in each other's arms.

With this beautiful metaphor, I shall wind up the episode of my
unfortunate brother Joe.

It was about a year after the loss of my brother that I was ushered into
the world, without any other assistants or spectators than my father