ng to
both equally, to settle the vexed question of accident or malice.

"Good gracious! why are we waiting here?" she cried, drying her eyes
quickly and ceasing to sob. "You will both get your deaths from cold
if you stand here in your wet clothes.--Come in, dear Leam, and I will
drive you home at once.--Fina, my darling, leave off crying, that's
my little angel. I will take you to papa, and you will be all right
directly. I cannot bear to see you cry so much, dear Fina: don't, my
pet."

Which only made the little one weep I and sob the more, children,
like women, liking nothing better than to be commiserated because of
distress which they could; control without difficulty if they would.

Seating the child at the bottom of the carriage and covering her with
the rug, Josephine flicked her ponies, which were glad enough to
be off and doing something to which they were accustomed, and soon
brought her dripping charge to Ford House, where they found Mr. Dundas
in the porch drawing on his gloves, his horse standing at the door.

"Good heavens! what is all this about?" he cried, rushing forward to
receive the disconsolate cargo, unloading one by one the whole group
dank and dismal--Josephine's scared face swollen with tears, white
and red in the wrong places; Leam's set like a mask, blanched, rigid,
tragic; Fina's now flushed and angry, now pale and frightened, with
a child's swift-varying emotions; and the garments of the last two
clinging like cerements and dripping small pools on the gravel.

"Learn pushed me into the river," said Fina, beginning to cry afresh,
and holding on by Josephine, who now kissed and coaxed her, and said,
"Fina, my darling, don't say such a wicked thing of poor Leam: it is
so naughty, so very naughty," and then took to hugging her again, as
the mood of the instant swayed her toward the child or the girl,
but always full of womanly weakness and kindness to each, and only
troubled that she had to make distinctions, as it were, between them.

"What is it you say, Fina?" asked Mr. Dundas slowly--"Leam pushed you
into the river?"

"Yes," sobbed Fina.

"I did not, papa. And I went in myself to save her," said Leam,
holding her head very straight and high.

Mr. Dundas looked at her keenly, sternly. "Well, no, Leam," he
answered, with, as it seemed to her, marked coldness and in a strange
voice: "with all your unpleasant temper I do not like to suppose you
could be guilty of the crime of murder