prankish schoolboys out for a frolic; not long after joining hands,
as it were, they leaped down an embankment, laughing, as one could
fancy, listening to the babble the waters made, watching the
sparkling of the flying spray. Ah! many a rainbow shimmered about the
waterfall; right dangerous was the whirlpool above and below the
fall. Deep down in the ravine the waters meandered, calmly tranquil:
very like mature thoughtful manhood, after the prankish follies of
youth are past.

Well, along by the side of the brook trudged Mab, saying aloud, as if
to re-assure herself, "There are no ghosts and no wolves," for only
her parents' words could render the imaginative child brave, strong,
handsome girl of eight though she was. But ah! ah! what was that?

She was nearing Smith's cottage now, and surely something was
stirring among the bushes and undergrowth. Ah! yes, and a formidable
something was to be seen; her eyes scarce took it in ere it had quite
vanished. She met a little old woman a minute after, carrying a
bundle of sticks.

"Please; ma'am, did you see anything like a dog or a wolf as you came
along?" she asked, half ashamed of her question.

"La! child, no; and I hope I shan't, for I likes no such creatures;"
so saying, the old woman took to her heels and ran, sticks and all.

Poor little Mab wished she had not scared the old soul with her
fancies, for of course they were fancies, when oh, horror! the
child's heart seemed to leap into her throat; there, almost close to
her, was a hideous creature, which her startled imagination conjured
up into something terrible to behold, snorting, growling, and bearing
down upon her. Poor, impulsive, silly Mab: before she well knew what
she was doing she had sprung aside, anywhere to be out of the way of
the beast--a wolf she thought it was--and that anywhere was into the
brook, the prankish brook, just where it joined hands with its wild
companion. The very trees seemed to rustle with consternation as her
shriek rang around; ay, she may shriek, but who would hear her? Not
her father, chopping at and felling the giant trees some distance
away.

Now two lads rush up to the edge of the brook: they are Jack and Ben.
Jack drops a something very like a skin, and leaps in after poor,
screaming, struggling Mab, borne away, borne on to be hugged and
embraced in the arms of both streams, and hurried forward to the
waterfalls.

Alas! alas! will Jack save her? He has reached her; sh