with one rower, or cut them out, as it was
called, they set up a cheer and began to pull
vigorously. We scarcely noticed this till they
were close upon us, and my bad steering did
not help to prevent a collision. They cut our
boat right across, and in an instant we were
struggling in the water. The strong arm of
Garnett held me up for a time; but the two
rowers and the steersman of the other boat
rose suddenly to assist us, and in so doing
swamped their boat also. One of them
seized my companion, and so encumbered
him that he lost his hold of me. After this,
I drifted up the river, and sank with a great
roaring of water in my ears; but rose again,
scarcely conscious of anything but a kind of
faith that my friend could save me yet. So,
indeed, it proved; for when I came to life
again, in great pain and misery, I was lying
in bed in a whitewashed room, with Garnett
there — and I knew that I owed my escape to
him. His attempt to hold me, while the
rower from the other boat was hanging to
him, had so exhausted him that when both
his incumbrances had dropped off, he had
drifted away like me, and only recovered
breath by floating. In this way he found
me again, and held my chin above water
until help arrived; but the occupants of the
other boat were drowned.

My accident caused me a serious and long
illness. It ended with a dangerous fever.
Garnett watched and tended me all the while
I was at Fulham. When it was safe to do so,
they removed me to a little country-house of
my father's at Hoxton — a white house covered
with a vine, and having a garden hidden
by a high red-brick buttressed wall, in a lane
called Grange Walk. I daresay that the
busy streets and shops of London have long
ago spread over this neighbourhood, and,
destroyed all traces of its former rural
character; but I have often stood at the
door in the wall of our garden next the
lane, and looked far away over a field of oats
or barley, in which the reapers were at work,
and seeing no houses anywhere, save a rustic
tavern with a painted signboard swinging
between two elms before its door.

In this quiet retreat I at last began to
recover; and, wasted as I was, could put on
my clothes once more, and walk about the
sheltered garden with a stick. Garnett was
always with me. Till this time I had never
brought him to my house — not that any
feeling of pride prevented me; it was rather
consideration for him, and, perhaps, some
fear that he would refuse to come, knowing
my father's position and his feeling. Now,
however, all such thoughts were at an end.
My father said to me one day:

"My gratitude to your young friend is, of
course, very great, and anything I could do
to advance him hereafter would delight me;
but you know I cannot be brought into
contact with old Garnett. It would not do, and
I would not have it on any account."

I thought this very unfeeling; but I
answered that I did not think Garnett wished
his father to come.

"I dare say not," said my father; " he is a
fine young fellow, and has, I am sure, a great
deal of good sense."

I had another companion in my illness— a
gentler, if not a kinder or a better nurse.
This was my cousin, Alice Vanderlinden.
Since my father had been a widower her old
maiden aunt had managed our household,
and Alice was often with us. Her father
was a merchant, with a house in one of the
yards behind the Monument, where the
firm of Vanderlinden, with some changes of
partners, had been established ever since the
reign of William the Third. At that time
the ancestor of Alice's father— a merchant
whose ships traded to the Indian seas— had
come over from Amsterdam, in which city
the firm had still close connections. Some of
the Vanderlindens had served certain periods
in the Amsterdam house, and had come back
to England with Dutch wives; but Alice's
mother was an Englishwoman, and Alice
had herself no trace of the ordinary type of
Dutch face— the abundant light hair, and
smooth, round, cheerful countenances of
Hobbima's pictures. She was dark-haired, of an
oval face, somewhat pale, but very beautiful,
I thought, though then scarcely fifteen. I
have a portrait of her of that time, and in
this she stands beside a little table, while on
the other side are two Greek columns hung
with heavy folds of purple curtain, ill suiting
with her simple beauty, and her plain black
dress. On the table is a basket made of
straw tubes of various colours, such as our
French prisoners were then allowed to make
and sell. In this basket she used to bring
her needlework, and many a book or little
article that might please or amuse me in my
long illness.

The house of Vanderlinden was full of fine
traditions. Its English founder was honoured
with something very nearly like a friendship
with the great Sir William Temple, some of
whose autograph letters relating to large
sums of money to be transmitted by means of
bills of exchange, to our minister at the
Hague, were still preserved by them and
cherished. They bad always been staunch
Whigs, and busy partisans in the old noisy
Middlesex elections. Their names were
among the loyal subscribers for a large sum
to the original stock of the Bank of England.
Up-stairs, in the large room of their heavy
old brick house in the city, where they lived
and carried on business still, hung portraits
of their trading ancestors with unmistakeable
Dutch faces; one of whom whose skin
was of a cinnamon brown, had been a spice
merchant, long established at Amboyna, and
concerning him there was some legend which
the Vanderlindens did not care to speak
of. Alice, however, did not mind telling
us stories about all these. She had been