The water looked very inviting, rippling up to the beach, and a row to Croton Dam was proposed.  After some little delay, a boat and a very good-natured negro boatman were procured, and we departed.

The sun, I must own, was rather hot at that hour of the day, and struck with peculiar force upon our hot bombazine dresses, and heavy crape veils.  Ida and I looked with a sigh at Mr. Reid’s cool white flannel suit.  Sam, the boatman, ceased to row, and let the boat drift, being overcome by the heat, while papa sat in the bow, and looked disconsolate that he had not the morning news to read.

We were now at quite a distance from the shore, and as there was no one present but the boatman to be shocked by hearing secular music, I ventured to sing a few simple ballads, for music and water I think blend most harmoniously.

Soon light, fleecy clouds commenced to shield us from the sun’s scorching rays; we closed our parasols, and played with the deliciously cool water, wondering meantime like Miss Helen, in that exquisite “Atlantic” story, if we could call up a mermaid front below.  But while we were drifting along so charmingly, the clouds had become heavier and blacker, and seizing the oars, Sam commenced to row with desperate haste.  We were, however, beaten in our race with the storm, and reached Croton Dam in a perfect tempest of thunder, and lightning, and dashing rain.  Unfortunately Ida and I had worn slippers, not having expected to walk, and there was only one umbrella in the party—­our little parasols with their crape borders and bows being more suitable for ornament than service; however, we scrambled up the steep bank as best we could, and ran to the protecting doorway of the water-house (the house itself was locked as it was Sunday).  Here we stowed ourselves away like so many sardines, and waited patiently under the umbrella for an hour.  Finally the sun broke out, and we made our way over deep ponds of water back to our boat.  Sam looked up with a dejected expression as we approached, and feared the boat wasn’t fit for the ladies to go home in; he was bailing it out as fast as he could, but it was very wet.

Wet indeed!  Why Sam had not drawn the boat up on the beach and turned it over during the rain, no one could imagine; but that brilliant idea had not occurred to him.  Therefore we were obliged to row back with our feet reposing in little pools of water.

Before long, down came the rain again in torrents, but stimulated by the prospective fee, Sam rowed with giant strokes.  About a mile from the hotel, we met the landlord rowing with desperate haste.  It seems that the rain had been even more violent at his end of the lake, having been magnified into a squall upon the water, and a tornado upon land, blowing down trees, and breaking away the lattice-work of the hotel piazza; consequently he supposed our boat must have been ingulfed, and had come to look for the corpses.  His amazement at finding us alive, and, though very wet, in excellent spirits, was great.