"No, mum," answered Amenda, with entire absence of curiosity as to why
such a question had been addressed to her, "I never knew but one girl as
could, and she got drowned."

"Well, you'll have to make haste and learn, then," continued Ethelbertha,
"because you won't be able to walk out with your young man, you'll have
to swim out. We're not going to live in a house any more. We're going
to live on a boat in the middle of the river."

Ethelbertha's chief object in life at this period was to surprise and
shock Amenda, and her chief sorrow that she had never succeeded in doing
so. She had hoped great things from this announcement, but the girl
remained unmoved. "Oh, are you, mum," she replied; and went on to speak
of other matters.

I believe the result would have been the same if we had told her we were
going to live in a balloon.

I do not know how it was, I am sure. Amenda was always most respectful
in her manner. But she had a knack of making Ethelbertha and myself feel
that we were a couple of children, playing at being grown up and married,
and that she was humouring us.

Amenda stayed with us for nearly five years--until the milkman, having
saved up sufficient to buy a "walk" of his own, had become
practicable--but her attitude towards us never changed. Even when we
came to be really important married people, the proprietors of a
"family," it was evident that she merely considered we had gone a step
further in the game, and were playing now at being fathers and mothers.