`Yes,' replied I, `it was.' `Well then, what
else took place?' `Why, when we were in the middle of the stream she
and her child went overboard; I pulled her in again, but could not see
the child.' Fortunately for the poor girl, they didn't ask me which
went overboard first, and that saved her from hanging. She was confined
six months in prison, and then let out again; but you see, if it hadn't
been for my unfortunately feeling the child, and feeling it was warm,
which proved its being alive, the poor young woman would have got off
altogether, perhaps. So much for the sense of feeling, which I say is
of no use to nobody, but only a vexation." [Puff--the pipe out,
relighted--puff, puff.]

"But, father," said Mary, "did you ever hear the history of the poor
girl?"

"Yes, I heard as how it was a hard case, how she had been seduced by
some fellow who had left her and her baby, upon which she determined to
drown herself, poor thing; and her baby too. Had she only tried to
drown her baby I should have said it was quite unnatural; but as she
wished to drown herself at the same time, I considers that drowning the
baby to take it to heaven with her was quite natural, and all agreeable
to human natur'. Love's a sense which young women should keep down as
much as possible, Mary; no good comes of that sense."

"And yet, father, it appears to me to be human nature," replied Mary.

"So it is, but there's mischief in it, girl, so do you never have
anything to do with it."

"Was there mischief when you fell in love with my mother and married
her?"

"You shall hear, Mary," replied old Stapleton, who recommenced.

"It was 'bout two months after the poor girl threw herself into the
river that I first seed your mother. She was then mayhap two years
older than you may be, and much such a same sort of person in her looks.
There was a young man who plied from our stairs, named Ben Jones; he
and I were great friends, and used for to help each other, and when a
fare called for oars, used to ply together. One night he says to me,
`Will, come up, and I'll show you a devilish fine piece of stuff.' So I
walks with him, and he takes me to a shop where they dealed in marine
stores, and we goes and finds your mother in the back parlour. Ben
sends for pipes and beer, and we sat down and made ourselves
comfortable. Now, Mary, your mother was a very jilting kind of girl,
who would put one fellow off to take another, just as her whim a