orses, Casimer strolled away with him, and the young ladies went to
gather wild flowers at the foot of the tower.

"Not a harebell here; isn't it provoking, when they grow in tufts up
there, where one can't reach them. Mercy, what's that? Run, Nell, the
old wall is coming down!"

Both had been grubbing in a damp nook, where ferns and mosses grew
luxuriantly; the fall of a bit of stone and a rending sound above made
them fly back to the path and look up.

Amy covered her eyes, and Helen grew pale, for part way down the
crumbling tower, clinging like a bird to the thick ivy stems, hung
Casimer, coolly gathering harebells from the clefts of the wall.

"Hush; don't cry out or speak; it may startle him. Crazy boy! Let us
see what he will do," whispered Helen.

"He can't go back, the vines are so torn and weak; and how will he get
down the lower wall? for you see the ivy grows up from that ledge, and
there is nothing below. How could he do it? I was only joking when I
lamented that there were no knights now, ready to leap into a lion's
den for a lady's glove," returned Amy, half angry.

In breathless silence they watched the climber till his cap was full
of flowers, and taking it between his teeth, he rapidly swung down to
the wide ledge, from which there appeared to be no way of escape but a
reckless leap of many feet on to the turf below.

The girls stood in the shadow of an old gateway, unperceived, and
waited anxiously what should follow.

Lightly folding and fastening the cap together, he dropped it down,
and, leaning forward, tried to catch the top of a young birch rustling
close by the wall. Twice he missed it; the first time he frowned, but
the second he uttered an emphatic, "Deuce take it!"

Helen and Amy looked at each other with a mutual smile and
exclamation,--

"He knows some English, then!"

There was time for no more--a violent rustle, a boyish laugh, and down
swung the slender tree, with the young man clinging to the top.

As he landed safely, Helen cried, "Bravo!" and Amy rushed out,
exclaiming reproachfully, yet admiringly,--

"How could you do it and frighten us so? I shall never express a wish
before you again, for if I wanted the moon you'd rashly try to get it,
I know."

"_Certainement_, mademoiselle," was the smiling reply. Casimer
presented the flowers, as if the exploit was a mere trifle.

"Now I shall go and press them at once in uncle's guide-book. Come and
help me, else you will