t--before she could say another
word. The boy was a stranger to her; she had never seen him before.

But he went to work just as though he had been introduced! He flung off
his cap and stripped off the jacket, too, in a twinkling. It seemed to
Agnes as though he climbed up the tree and reached the limb she clung to
as quickly as any cat.

He flung up his legs, wound them about the butt of the limb like two
black snakes, and seized Agnes' wrists. "Swing free--I've got you!" he
commanded.

Agnes actually obeyed. There was something impelling in his voice; but
likewise she felt that there was sufficient strength in those hands that
grasped her wrists, to hold her.

Her feet slipped from the ledge and she shot down. The white-haired boy
swung out, too, but they did not fall as Agnes agonizingly expected,
after she had trusted herself to the unknown.

There was some little shock, but not much; their bodies swung clear of
the tree--he with his head down, and she with her slippered feet almost
touching the wet grass.

"All right?" demanded the white-head. "Let go!"

He dropped her. She stood upright, and unhurt, but swayed a little,
weakly. The next instant he was down and stood, breathing quickly,
before her.

"Why--why--why!" gasped Agnes. Just like that! "Why, you did that just
like a circus."

Oddly enough the white-haired boy scowled and a dusky color came slowly
into his naturally pale cheek.

"What do you say that for?" he asked, dropping his gaze, and picking up
his cap and jacket. "What do you mean--circus?"

"Why," said Agnes, breathlessly, "just like one of those acrobats that
fly over the heads of the people, and do all those curious things in the
air----Why! you know."

"How do I know?" demanded the boy, quite fiercely.

It became impressed upon Agnes' mind that the stranger was angry. She
did not know why, and she only felt gratitude--and curiosity--toward
him.

"Didn't you ever go to a circus?" she asked, slowly.

The boy hesitated. Then he said, bluntly: "No!" and Agnes knew it was
the truth, for he looked now unwaveringly into her eyes.

"My! you've missed a lot," she breathed. "So did we till this summer.
Then Mr. Howbridge took us to one of those that came to Milton."

"What circus was it you went to?" the boy asked, quickly.

"Aaron Wall's Magnificent Double Show," repeated Agnes, carefully.
"There was another came--Twomley & Sorter's Herculean Circus and
Menagerie; but we didn't see