sitting here calmly, we may be sipping our death potion."

Some of the people actually put down their glasses and everybody began
to look uneasy except Mr. Sam, who was still watching something I could
not see.

Mr. Thoburn looked around and saw he'd made an impression. "We may,"
he continued, "although my personal opinion of this water is that it's
growing too weak to be wicked. I prove my faith in Mother Nature; if it
is poisoned, I am gone. I drink!"

Mr. Sam suddenly straightened up and glanced at Miss Summers. "Perhaps
I'm mistaken," he said, "but I think there is something the matter with
Arabella."

Everybody looked: Arabella was lying on her back, jerking and twitching
and foaming at the mouth.

"She's been poisoned!" Miss Summers screeched, and fell on her knees
beside her. "It's that wretched water!"

There was pretty nearly a riot in a minute. Everybody jumped up and
stared at the dog, and everybody remembered the water he or she had just
had, and coming on top of Mr. Thoburn's speech, it made them babbling
lunatics. As I look back, I have a sort of picture of Miss Summers on
the floor with Arabella in her lap, and the rest telling how much of the
water they had had and crowding around Mr. Thoburn.

"It seems hardly likely it was the water," he said, "although from what
I recall of my chemistry it is distinctly possible. Springs have been
known to change their character, and the coincidence--the dog and the
water--is certainly startling. Still, as nobody feels ill--"

But they weren't sure they didn't. The bishop said he felt perfectly
well, but he had a strange inclination to yawn all the time, and Mrs.
Biggs' left arm had gone to sleep. And then, with the excitement and
all, Miss Cobb took a violent pain in the back of her neck and didn't
know whether to cry or to laugh.

Well, I did what I could. The worst of it was, I wasn't sure it wasn't
the water. I thought possibly Mr. Pierce had made a mistake in what he
had bought at the drug store, and although I don't as a rule drink it
myself, I began to feel queer in the pit of my stomach.

Mr. Thoburn came over to the spring, and filling a glass, took it to
the light, with every one watching anxiously. When he brought it back he
stooped over the railing and whispered to me.

"When did you fix it?" he asked sternly.

"Last night," I answered. It was no time to beat about the bush.

"It's yellower than usual," he said. "I'm inclined to think someth