nt for you that you will not
soon forget, do you hear?"

A hidden thought of revenge for the spoiled sport came into Olly's mind.
He twisted himself away from his sister with a little grunt, and stood
peevishly playing a moment with a couple of marbles; then suddenly
darting aside, seized the boat in which Miss Delano was established,
still struggling, but more feebly, with the mysterious trouble that held
her in thrall; and with a strength with which one would hardly have
credited his slight form, he pushed it off into the water. There was, of
course, not a particle of real danger for Miss Delano, even though this
chanced to be the only boat at that point, and she was no oarswoman; but
the poor little old lady, thus suddenly roused from the strange
hallucinations (as she called them) which were the most marked feature of
her complaint, and finding herself afloat upon the unstable deep,
instantly supposed that her last hour was come. She sprang up, too
terrified to scream, with a look of deadly horror in her face, and then
sank again all in a heap in the bottom of the boat. Olly gave a fiendish
laugh, but before any one else could move to the rescue, Gerald, with one
fierce, unutterable look at her brother, and no thought but how soonest
to end Miss Delano's speechless agony, quick as a flash, caught hold of
an overhanging bough and swung herself on to a rock quite far out in the
water, and thence, with a light, bold spring, landed safely in the middle
of the boat as it drifted past.

"All right, Miss Delano," she said, briskly, seating herself and laying
hold of the oars with accustomed hands; "I'm a born sailor, and we'll
have a little row first before we go back."

Had an angel visibly descended from heaven to assume the helm, Miss
Delano could not have been more grateful and overcome. "Oh, my dear, my
dear!" she said, and, in the intensity of her relief, began to cry a
little softly. Gerald pretended not to notice her emotion (she was very
awkward as a comforter, and as shy before tears as a man), and rowed
around for a while in utter silence; and then feeling that conversation
might aid in quieting her companion's unnecessarily excited nerves she
began abruptly charging her with questions as one loads a gun with
cartridges, dropping down one after another with cruel directness into
the harmless vacancy of Miss Delano's brain. How many inhabitants had
Joppa in precise figures? what was the height of those farther