ut with a quotation that compared him to old Palinurus,
all the while allowing his worthy and admirable burden to sink lower and
dispread in excess upon the surface of the water, until the vantage of
her daughter's help was lost to her; I beheld the consequences of my
indiscretion, dismayed. I would have checked the preposterous Virgilian,
but in contempt of my uplifted hand and averted head, and regardless of
the fact that his wife was then literally dependent upon him, the vicar
declaimed (and the drenching effect produced by Latin upon a lady at such
a season, may be thought on):

Vix primos inopina quies laxaverat artus,
Et super incumbens, cum puppis parte revulsa
Cumque gubernaclo liquidas projecit in undas.'

It is not easy when you are unacquainted with the language, to retort
upon Latin, even when the attempt to do so is made in English. Very few
even of the uneducated ears can tolerate such anti-climax vituperative as
English after sounding Latin. Mrs. Amble kept down those sentiments which
her vernacular might have expressed. I heard but one groan that came from
her as she lay huddled indistinguishably in the, arms of her husband.

'Not--praecipitem! I am happy to say,' my senseless friend remarked
further, and laughed cheerfully as he fortified his statement with a run
of negatives. 'No, no'; in a way peculiar to him. 'No, no. If I plant my
grey hairs anywhere, it will be on dry land: no. But, now, my dear; he
returned to his duty; why, you're down again. Come: one, two, and up.'

He was raising a dead weight. The passion for sarcastic speech was
manifestly at war with common prudence in the bosom of Mrs. Amble;
prudence, however, overcame it. She cast on him a look of a kind that
makes matrimony terrific in the dreams of bachelors, and then wedding her
energy to the assistance given she made one of those senseless springs of
the upper half of the body, which strike the philosophic eye with the
futility of an effort that does not arise from a solid basis. Owing to
the want of concert between them, the vicar's impulsive strength was
expended when his wife's came into play. Alice clutched her mother
bravely. The vicar had force enough to stay his wife's descent; but Alice
(she boasts of her muscle) had not the force in the other direction--and
no wonder. There are few young ladies who could pull fourteen stone sheer
up a camshot.

Mrs. Amble remained in suspense between the two.