“It’s all right, baby dear,” explained Ethelbertha soothingly.  “Baby’s going out with mamma this morning.”

“Oh no, baby ain’t,” was baby’s rejoinder, in effect if not in words.  “Baby don’t take a hand in experiments—­not this baby.  I don’t want to be upset or run over.”

Poor Ethel!  I shall never forget how heart-broken she was.  It was the want of confidence that wounded her.

But these are reminiscences of other days, having no connection with the days of which I am—­or should be—­writing; and to wander from one matter to another is, in a teller of tales, a grievous sin, and a growing custom much to be condemned.  Therefore I will close my eyes to all other memories, and endeavour to see only that little white and green houseboat by the ferry, which was the scene of our future collaborations.

Houseboats then were not built to the scale of Mississippi steamers, but this boat was a small one, even for that primitive age.  The man from whom we hired it described it as “compact.”  The man to whom, at the end of the first month, we tried to sub-let it, characterised it as “poky.”  In our letters we traversed this definition.  In our hearts we agreed with it.

At first, however, its size—­or, rather, its lack of size—­was one of its chief charms in Ethelbertha’s eyes.  The fact that if you got out of bed carelessly you were certain to knock your head against the ceiling, and that it was utterly impossible for any man to put on his trousers except in the saloon, she regarded as a capital joke.

That she herself had to take a looking-glass and go upon the roof to do her back hair, she thought less amusing.

Amenda accepted her new surroundings with her usual philosophic indifference.  On being informed that what she had mistaken for a linen-press was her bedroom, she remarked that there was one advantage about it, and that was, that she could not tumble out of bed, seeing there was nowhere to tumble; and, on being shown the kitchen, she observed that she should like it for two things—­one was that she could sit in the middle and reach everything without getting up; the other, that nobody else could come into the apartment while she was there.

“You see, Amenda,” explained Ethelbertha apologetically, “we shall really live outside.”

“Yes, mum,” answered Amenda, “I should say that would be the best place to do it.”

If only we could have lived more outside, the life might have been pleasant enough, but the weather rendered it impossible, six days out of the seven, for us to do more than look out of the window and feel thankful that we had a roof over our heads.

I have known wet summers before and since.  I have learnt by many bitter experiences the danger and foolishness of leaving the shelter of London any time between the first of May and the thirty-first of October.  Indeed, the country is always associate in my mind with recollections of long, weary days passed in the pitiless rain, and sad evenings spent in other people’s clothes.  But never have I known, and never, I pray night and morning, may I know again, such a summer as the one we lived through (though none of us expected to) on that confounded houseboat.