man!" she cried, and the
instant silence showed the disgust that her words had provoked.

"Wal, I s'pose that's the kind of thanks that a poor feller can expect
from a lady 'ristocrat!" said the fisherman as he turned to go, "but
I'll say one thing more, an' that is that the young lad named Max is
'sponsible for the mischief. It was him what coaxed the little lass
inter that ol' tub, an' then run off ter play."

"Three cheers for this man!" cried a young fellow who had listened
intently, and the guests responded with a will, and Mrs. Harcourt from
the hall whence she had vanished with Gwen, wondered what it was all
about.

She considered herself a cultured woman, yet she had not spoken one
grateful word to the man who had rescued Gwen from her perilous
position!

Of course Max denied that he had intended to play a trick on Gwen. He
was a coward, and a coward rarely cares to "own up" when guilty.

Instead, he insisted that he only "dared" her to get into the tub, but
that he never thought she would stay in it a moment after he was out
of sight.

His mother believed him; the guests did not, but little cared Max. So
long as she thought him perfect, he was quite happy, because he could
do, at all times, exactly as he chose. That he usually chose to be
very disagreeable was not to be wondered at.

His mother thought his pranks most amusing, and his saucy speeches,
smart, so he was quite content.

The oddest part of all was that Gwen really liked Max Deland. He was
always getting her into scrapes, and as soon as she had escaped from
one, she was ready for another.

Max never helped her. Instead, he left her to help herself. Gwen was
wilful with all of her girl playmates, but she would agree to anything
that Max proposed, so when, in the afternoon of the following day, he
told her that he was going to take a long tramp, Gwen was wild to know
just where he was going, and coaxed to go too.

"_Where_ are you going?" she asked for the third time.

"Oh, somewhere great!" Max said with a provoking chuckle.

"It would serve you just right if I said I didn't care where you went,
but I do care, because I want to go too," Gwen said.

"I only wanted to tease you," Max replied, "and I'll let you go with
me, Gwen. Turn 'round and look at that high hill over back of the
house where we're staying. I'm going to climb to the top of that hill,
and go down on the other side, just to see what there is 'round behind
that hill."