the sound of splashing boots and shouting came down across the
dark water, and that lights smote her eyelids with sharp pain. An
overwhelming dread of effort swept over her. She did not want to move
her aching body, to raise her heavy head. Somebody's arm braced her
shoulders; she toppled against it.

She dreamed that Jim Carr's voice said, "Take the kid, Sing! He's all
right!" and that Jim Carr lifted her up, and shouted out, "She's almost
gone!"

Then some one was carrying her across rough ground, across smooth
ground, to where there was a fire, and blankets, and
voices--voices--voices.

"It makes me choke!" That was Mary Bell Barber, whispering to Jim Carr.
But she could not open her eyes.

"But drink it, dearest! Swallow it!" he pleaded.

"You were too late, Jim, we couldn't hold on!" she whispered pitifully.
And then, as the warmth and the stimulant had their effect, she did
open her eyes; and the fire, the ring of faces, the black sky, and the
moon breaking through, all slipped into place.

"Did you come for us, Jim?" she murmured, too tired to wonder why the
big fellow should cry as he put his face against hers.

"I came for you, dear! I came back to sit with you on the steps. I
didn't want to dance without my girl, and that's why I'm here. My brave
little girl!"

Mary Bell leaned against his shoulder contentedly.

"That's right; you rest!" said Jim. "We're all going home now, and
we'll have you tucked away in bed in no time. Mrs. Bates is all ready
for you!"

"Jim," whispered Mary Bell.

"Darling?"--he put his mouth close to the white lips.

"Jim, will you remind Aunty Bates to hang up my party dress real
carefully? In all the fuss some one's sure to muss it!" said Mary Bell.

WHAT HAPPENED TO ALANNA

A capped and aproned maid, with a martyred expression, had twice
sounded the dinner-bell in the stately halls of Costello, before any
member of the family saw fit to respond to it.

Then they all came at once, with a sudden pounding of young feet on the
stairs, an uproar of young voices, and much banging of doors. Jim and
Danny, twins of fourteen, to whom their mother was wont proudly to
allude as "the top o' the line," violently left their own sanctum on
the fourth floor, and coasted down such banisters as lay between that
and the dining-room. Teresa, an angel-faced twelve-year-old in a blue
frock, shut 'The Wide, Wide World' with a sigh, and climbed down from
the window-seat in the hal