-oh, horror!--right out
of Agatha's arms. A moment the little muslin frock caught on the
railing--caught--ripped; then the sash, with its long knotted ends,
which some one snatched at--nothing but the sash held up the shrieking
child, who hung suspended half way over the pit, in reach of the beast's
very jaws.

The bear did not at once see it, till startled by the mother's frightful
cries. Then he opened his teeth--it looked almost like a grin--and began
slowly to descend his tree, while, as slowly, the poor child's sash was
unloosing with its weight.

A murmur of horror ran through the people near; but not a man among them
offered help. They all slid back, except Nathanael Harper.

Agatha felt his sudden gripe. "Hold my hand firm. Keep me in my
balance," he whispered, and throwing himself over to the whole extent
of his body, and long right arm, managed to catch hold of James, who
struggled violently.

"Hold me tight--tighter still, or we are lost," said he, trying to
writhe back again; his hand--such a little delicate hand it seemed for a
man--quivering with the weight of the child.

She grasped him frantically--his wrist--his shoulder--nay,--stretching
over, linked her arms round his neck. Something in her touch seemed to
impart strength to him. He whispered, half gasping,--

"Hold me firm, and I'll do it yet, Agatha." She did not then notice, or
recollect till long afterwards, how he had called her by her Christian
name, nor the tone in which he had said it.

The moment afterwards, he had lifted the child out of the den, and poor
Jemmie was screaming out his now harmless terror safe in the maternal
arms.

Then, and not till then, Agatha burst into tears. Tears which no
one saw, for the mother, hugging her baby, was the very centre of a
sympathising crowd. Mr. Harper, paler than ordinary, leaned against the
stone-work of the den.

"Oh, from what have you saved me?" cried Agatha, as after her
thankfulness for the rescued life, came another thought, personal yet
excusable. "Had Emma lost the child, I should have felt like a murderess
to the day of my death."

Nathanael shook his head, trying to smile; but seemed unable to speak.

"You have not hurt yourself?"

"Oh no. Very little. Only a strain," said he as he removed his hand from
his side. "Go to your friend: I will come presently."

He did come--though not for a good while; and Miss Bowen fancied from
his looks that he had been more injured than he