"Charlie says that I caught a crab. He says, in my haste and my excitement--I didn't know I was excited, but I suppose I must have been--I did not put the oar into the water at all; I pulled with all my might at the vacant air. I know that I fell backwards off my seat, and that I made a wild grab at anything and everything, and that the boat went over.
"I never shall forget it. The water got into my ears and eyes and nose and mouth, and I thought that I never should stop going down. Then, all of a sudden, I found myself on the surface again, with the sky above me and Charlie's arm about my waist.
"Keep still," he said.
I did keep still; he says I did keep still. He says himself that I behaved like a regular trump. I do declare to you, mamma, that I never felt the least bit uneasy directly I felt Charlie's arm round my waist. Wasn't it strange?
"'You won't let me drown, Charlie, will you?'
"That was all I said.
"'Not if I know it. It's all right, May; we're going shares in the other half of my dip, that's all. I'll take you ashore as easy as winking.'
"I don't know exactly what it was I said, but I believe that I said some absurd thing about that, if I was drowned, he would know that I loved him. But I do know that he kissed me, then and there, while he was holding me up for dear life, in the middle of the river.
"I never fainted till we got ashore, and then I only just dropped off. Charlie carried me right off to my bedroom, and there was a fine to-do. But I wasn't going to stop in bed--not I. I just changed my clothes and went straight downstairs to breakfast, and, after breakfast, I went for another row. And I went for another after lunch, and I got on first rate. Charlie declares that, with practice, I shall make as good an oarswoman as you would care to see; and, after we are married, he's going to teach me swimming--so he says.
"But we're not married yet."