imal,
fell on the grass border within the gate, at the very feet of the
children whose safety he had counted of so much more consequence than
his own life.

Darby flung himself on the ground beside the still, pathetic little
figure, and Joan, with sobs and cries, implored her dear dwarf to open
his eyes, to waken up and speak to his own little missy once more. But
the dwarf did not move or speak. His ears were deaf to Darby's tender
tones and Joan's insistent pleading.

At this moment Nurse Perry, with Eric in her arms, popped her head out
at the front door--just to get a breath of fresh air, as she would have
said. For a long minute she gazed at the group by the gate; then with a
loud cry, and dumping baby down upon the door mat, she flew along the
gravel path, and flinging her arms around the children, she laughed and
cried over them by turns.

"My precious pets!" she sobbed. "And have they come back to their poor
old Perry? And us thinkin' you was both dead and drownded in the canal.
Oh, did I ever!"

"There, nurse, that will do. You'd choke a fellow," declared Darby,
wriggling himself out of her clinging embrace. "Of course we're not
either dead or drowned. How can you be so silly?"

"Eh! and is it silly you call me for near frettin' myself into the grave
about you?" cried nurse, stung by Master Darby's want of feeling.--"Miss
Joan won't call nursie silly; sure you won't, lovey? And aren't you
glad to get back to your own Perry, and baby, and everything?"

"Yes, werry glad," agreed Joan readily; "and I hope you've got lots and
lots of jam and goodies for tea. Has you, nurse? 'cause I's as hung'y as
hung'y as anythin'!" she whimpered.

"Yes, darlin', there's a seed-cake and toast, and a whole pot of
beautiful strawberry jam that has never been touched. I couldn't eat
hardly a mouthful these days for picterin' my pretty lyin' in the mud at
the bottom of that slimy, smellin' canal," whined Perry, wiping her eyes
on the corner of a much-betrimmed white apron.

"That'll do, Perry," called out Miss Turner, in her usual brisk tones.
"Come here; I want you."

"Yes, ma'am," answered Perry meekly. "But oh, ma'am, what's _that_?" she
screamed, noticing for the first time the odd little object on the grass
over which the ladies were so anxiously bending. "What ever is it, Miss
Alice? Is it a _man_--_that_? and is he living?" the woman inquired in a
shocked whisper, drawing back her skirts, and gaping with eyes and mo