th the internal struggle of laughter at the parents and concern for
them.

'Now, pull, Alice,' shouted the vicar.

'No, not yet,' screamed Mrs. Amble; I'm sinking.'

'Pull, Alice.'

'Now, Mama.'

'Oh!'

'Push, Papa.'

'I'm down.'

'Up, Ma'am; Jane; woman, up.'

'Gently, Papa: Abraham, I will not.'

'My dear, but you must.'

'And that man opposite.'

'What, Pollingray? He's fifty.'

I found myself walking indignantly down the path. Even now I protest my
friend was guilty of bad manners, though I make every allowance for him;
I excuse, I pass the order; but why--what justifies one man's bawling
out another man's age? What purpose does it serve? I suppose the
vicar wished to reassure his wife, on the principle (I have heard him
enunciate it) that the sexes are merged at fifty--by which he means, I
must presume, that something which may be good or bad, and is generally
silly--of course, I admire and respect modesty and pudeur as much as any
man--something has gone: a recognition of the bounds of division. There
is, if that is a lamentable matter, a loss of certain of our young
tricks at fifty. We have ceased to blush readily: and let me ask you to
define a blush. Is it an involuntary truth or an ingenuous lie? I know
that this will sound like the language of a man not a little jealous of
his youthful compeers. I can but leave it to rightly judging persons to
consider whether a healthy man in his prime, who has enough, and is not
cursed by ambition, need be jealous of any living soul.

A shriek from Miss Alice checked my retreating steps. The vicar was
staggering to support the breathing half of his partner while she
regained her footing in the bed of the river. Their effort to scale
the camshot had failed. Happily at this moment I caught sight of Master
Frank's boat, which had floated, bottom upwards, against a projecting
mud-bank of forget-me-nots. I contrived to reach it and right it, and
having secured one of the sculls, I pulled up to the rescue; though
not before I had plucked a flower, actuated by a motive that I cannot
account for. The vicar held the boat firmly against the camshot, while
I, at the imminent risk of joining them (I shall not forget the combined
expression of Miss Alice's retreating eyes and the malicious corners of
her mouth) hoisted the lady in, and the river with her. From the seat
of the boat she stood sufficiently high to project the step towards
land without peril. When she ha