that time eleven years old, who was sitting on the box by the coachman,
saved us.

The other incident is of a less serious nature. I had seen many a salmon
in the kitchen, and resolved to fish for one from the steamer; so I tied
a bit of candy to a string and dropped it from the deck. The fish were so
wanting in taste as to disdain the sweet bait, but my early awakened love
of sport kept me patiently a long time in the same spot, which was
undoubtedly more agreeable to my mother than the bait was to the salmon.
As, protected by the guards, and probably watched by the governess and my
brothers and sisters, I devoted myself to this amusement, my mother went
down into the cabin to rest. Suddenly there was a loud uproar on the
ship. People shouted and screamed, everybody rushed on deck and looked
into the river. Whether I, too, heard the fall and saw the life-boat
manned I don't remember; but I recollect all the more clearly my mother's
rushing frantically from the cabin and clasping me tenderly to her heart
as her rescued child. So the drama ended happily, but there had been a
terrible scene.

Among the steamer's passengers was a crazy Englishman who was being
taken, under the charge of a keeper, to an insane asylum. While my mother
was asleep the lunatic succeeded in eluding this man's vigilance and
plunged into the river. Of course, there was a tumult on board, and my
mother heard cries of "Fallen into the river!"

"Save!" "He'll drown!" Maternal anxiety instantly applied them to the
child-angler, and she darted up the cabin stairs. I need not describe the
state of mind in which she reached the deck, and her emotion when she
found her nestling in his place, still holding the line in his hand.