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.