acknowledged; but she
did not like to inquire. Nevertheless he rose greatly in her estimation,
less for his courage than for the presence of mind and common sense
which made it Valuable, and for the self-restraint and indifference
which caused him afterwards to treat the whole adventure as such a
trifling thing.

It was, after all, nothing very romantic or extraordinary, and happened
in such a brief space of time, that probably the circumstance is not
noted in the traditionary chronicles of the Zoological Gardens, which
contain the frightful legend carefully related that day by several
keepers to Mrs. Thornycroft--how a bear had actually eaten up a child,
falling in the same manner into the same den.

But the adventure, slight as it may appear, made a very great and sudden
difference in the slender tie of acquaintanceship, hitherto subsisting
between Agatha and Major Harper's brother. She began to treat Nathanael
more like a friend, and ceased to think of him exactly as a "boy."

Master James's mamma, when she at last turned her attention from his
beloved small self, was full of thanks to his preserver. Mr. Harper
assured her that his feat was merely a little exertion of muscular
strength, and at last grew evidently uncomfortable at being made so much
of. Returning home with them, he would fain have crept away from the
scene of his honours; but the good-natured, motherly-hearted Emma
implored him to stay.

"We will nurse you if you are hurt, which I am afraid you must be--it
was such a dreadful strain! Oh, Jemmie, Jemmie!" and the poor mother
shuddered.

"Indeed you must come in," added Miss Bowen kindly, seeing that Emma's
thoughts were floating away, as appeared this time natural enough, to
her own concerns. "You shall rest all the evening, and we will talk to
you, and be very, very agreeable. Pray yield!"

Nathanael argued no more, but went in "quite lamb-like," as Mrs.
Thornycroft afterwards declared.

This acquiescence in him was little rewarded, Agatha thought--for the
evening happened to be duller even than evenings usually passed at the
Thornycrofts'. The head of the household, being detained in the
City, did not appear; and Mrs. Thornycroft's tongue, unchecked by her
husband's presence, and excited by the event of the afternoon, galloped
on at a fearful rapidity. She poured out upon the luckless young man all
the baby biography of her family, from Missy's christening down to the
infant Selina's cutting