It is
impossible to resist a temptation of this kind, and our party all yielded,
and posed themselves in striking and characteristic attitudes,--even Aunt
Melissa sharing the ambition to appear in a picture which she should never
see, and the nurse coming out strong from the abeyance in which she had
been held, and lifting the baby high into the air for a good likeness. The
frantic gesticulator on the shore gave an impressive wave with both hands,
took the cap from the instrument, turned his back, as photographers always
do, with that air of hiding their tears, for the brief space that seems so
long, and then clapped on the cap again, while a great sigh of relief went
up from the whole boat-load of passengers. They were taken.
But the interval had been a luckless one for the "Rose Standish," and when
she stirred her wheels, clouds of mud rose to the top of the water, and
there was no responsive movement of the boat. She was aground in the
falling tide.
"There seems a pretty fair prospect of our spending some time here, after
all," said Frank, while the ladies, who had reluctantly given up the idea
of staying, were now in a quiver of impatience to be off.
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