t that she would like to go on down the creek to the big pond
into which it emptied; but she knew better than to do that, for she
would be certain to miss her big brother, and it was already beginning
to grow dark around her.

"I wonder what makes Nick so long," she said to herself, as she sat down
on a fallen tree; "I'm so tired that I never can walk the four miles
home."

She had sat thus only a brief while, when her head began to droop; her
bright eyes grew dull, then closed, and leaning against a limb which put
out from the fallen tree, on which she was sitting, she sank into the
sweet, dreamless sleep of childhood and health.

Had she not been disturbed she would not have wakened until the sun
rose, but at the end of an hour, an involuntary movement of the head
caused it to slip off the limb against which it was resting with such a
shock that instantly she was as wide awake as though it was mid-day.

Ah, but when she sprang to her feet and stared about her in the gloom
she was dreadfully alarmed!

She was quick-witted enough to understand where she was and how it had
all come about. The gibbous moon was directly overhead, and shone down
upon her with unobstructed fullness.

"Nick has gone over the bridge while I was asleep," was her instant
conclusion; "and father and mother will be worried about me."

Her decision as to what she should do could not but be the one
thing--that was to climb back up the bank to the bridge, cross it, and
hurry homeward.

There was a little throbbing of the heart, when she reflected that she
had several miles to travel, most of which was through the gloomy woods;
but there was no hesitation on the part of Nellie, who, but for the
sturdy teaching of her parents, would have crouched down beside the log
and sobbed in terror until she sank into slumber through sheer
exhaustion.

"I have been a bad girl," she said to herself, as she reflected on her
thoughtlessness; "and mother will whip me, for I know she ought to; and
mother always does what she ought to do."

There was no room for doubt in the mind of the child, for she understood
the nature of her parents as well as any child could understand that of
its guardian.

Nellie was some distance below the point where the bridge spanned the
creek, but she could see the dim outlines of the structure as she
started toward it. It seemed higher than usual, but that was because the
circumstances were different from any in which she had