-" sobbed the mother.

"But there wasn't any 'if,' Lady Jane; 'cause if I hadn't seen the
falls and made her see them, too, she wouldn't have been near hand. If
she'd gone with the girl she wanted to, nothing at all would have
happened. Some way it got mixed up so she had to walk with me and
that's all. Only once we got out of the water onto the ground, I
started yelling, and I must have done it terrible loud. Else Mr. Hugh
wouldn't have heard me and followed my yells. He'd gone long past us,
hunting with his gun, and he heard me and came hurrying to where the
sound was. So he just put his coat around her and made her get up and
walk. He had to speak to her real cross before she would, she was so
dazed and mis'able. But she did at last, and he knew all those woods
by heart. And the directions of them, which way was north, or south,
or all ways.

"It was a right smart road he took for roughness, so that sometimes we
girls stumbled and fell, but he wouldn't stop. He kept telling us
that, and saying: 'Only a little further now!' though it did seem to
the end of the world. And by and by we came out of the woods to a
level road, and after a time to a little farmhouse. Mr. Hugh made the
farmer hitch up his horse mighty quick and wrap us in blankets and
drove us home--fast as fast. And, that's all. I'm sorry Gwendolyn took
such a cold and I hope when she gets well she'll forgive me for going
to sleep that time. And, please, Lady Jane, may I go now? Some of the
girls are waiting for me, 'cause they want me in the parade."

"Surely, my dear: and thank you for telling me so long a story. I
wanted it at first hands and I wanted Gwendolyn to hear it, too. Good
night and a happy, happy evening. It's really your own party, I hear;
begged by yourself from the Bishop for your schoolmates' pleasure. I
trust the lion's share of that pleasure may be your own."

As Dorothy left the room, with her graceful farewell curtsey, the girl
on the bed turned back toward her mother and lifted a tear-wet face.

"Why, Gwen, dearest, surely she didn't make you nervous again, did
she? She described your accident so simply and in such a matter of
course way. She seemed to blame the whole matter on herself; first her
discovery of the waterfall, then her falling asleep. She is a brave,
unselfish girl. Hoping you 'would forgive' her--for saving your
life!"

"Oh, mother, don't! You can't guess how that hurts me. 'Forgive her'!
Can she ever in this wor