spoke, was a fine, spacious
house situated on top of the hills, where run a broad plateau which
later in its history developed into a long and broad street, on either
side of which were erected dwellings which have since been interwoven
with the stateliest names in old Connecticut. The house was double,
built in the style of the day, with a hall running through it, and large
rooms on either side, the kitchen, bakery, and well-house all at the
back, and forming with the buttery a sort of L, near but not connecting
the different outhouses. It was shingled from top to bottom, and the
dormer windows, with their quaint panes, rendered it both stately and
picturesque. As the girls drew rein at the small porch, on the south
side of the mansion, a tall, fine-looking woman of middle age, her gray
gown tucked neatly up, and a snowy white apron tied around her shapely
waist, appeared at the threshold of the door.

"Why, Betty," she said in a surprised voice, "you have been absent so
long that I was about to send Reuben in search of you. The boxes are
undone, and we need your help; Moppet--why, what ails the child?" and
Miss Euphemia Wolcott paused in dismay us she surveyed Miss Moppet's
still damp habit and disheveled hair.

"I've been at the very bottom of Great Pond." announced the child,
enjoying the situation with true dramatic instinct, "and Betty has all
the herbs for Chloe safe in her basket."

"What does the child mean" asked her bewildered aunt, unfastening the
heavy cloth cape from the small shoulders, and perceiving that she had
had a thorough wetting.

"It is true, Aunt Euphemia," said Betty, springing off her mare and
throwing the reins to Reuben as he came slowly around the house. "We
were on one of the hillocks overlooking the pond, and somehow--it all
happened so swiftly that I cannot tell how--but Moppet must have
ventured too near the edge, for the treacherous soil gave way, and down
she pitched into the water before I could put out hand to stay her. I
think I screamed, and then I was pulling off my habit-skirt to plunge
after her when a young man ran hastily along the below and cried out to
me, 'Courage!' and he threw off his coat and dived down, down,"--Betty
shuddered and turned pale,--"and then he caught Moppet's skirt and held
her up until he swam safely to shore with her. She was quite
unconscious, but by chafing her hands and giving her some spirits (which
the young stranger had in his flask) we recov