dare he! What for?"

"'Cause I cut the rope an' let the boat go away with you, an' you might
have been drowned dead in the weir, an' I'm awfull' glad Uncle Dick
whipped me."

"O-h-h!" exclaimed Lisbeth, and it was a very long drawn "oh!" indeed.

"I don't know what made me do it," continued the imp. "I 'specks it
was my new knife--it was so nice an sharp, you know."

"Well, it's all right now, my Imp," I said, fumbling for a match in a
singularly clumsy manner. "If you ask me, I think we are all better
friends than ever--or should be. I know I should be fonder of your
Auntie Lisbeth even than before, and take greater care of her, if I
were you. And--and now take her in to tea, my Imp, and--and see that
she has plenty to eat," and lifting my hat I turned away. But Lisbeth
was beside me, and her hand was on my arm before I had gone a yard.

"We are having tea in the same old place--under the trees. If you
would care to--to--would you?"

"Yes, do--oh do, Uncle Dick!" cried the Imp. "I'll go and tell Jane to
set a place for you," and he bounded off.

"I didn't hit him very hard," I said, breaking a somewhat awkward
silence; "but you see there are some things a gentleman cannot do. I
think he understands now."

"Oh, Dick!" she said very softly; "and to think I could imagine you had
done such a thing--you; and to think that you should let me think you
had done such a thing--and all to shield that Imp? Oh, Dick! no wonder
he is so fond of you. He never talks of any one but you--I grow quite
jealous sometimes. But, Dick, how did you get into that boat?"

"By means of a tree with 'stickie-out' branches."

"Do you mean to say--"

"That, as I told you before, I dropped in, as it were."

"But supposing you had slipped?"

"But I didn't."

"And you can't swim a stroke!"

"Not that I know of."

"Oh, Dick! can you ever forgive me?"

"On three conditions."

"Well?"

"First, that you let me remember everything you said to me while we
were drifting down to the river."

"That depends, Dick. And the second?"

"The second lies in the fact that not far from the village of Down, in
Kent, there stands an old house--a quaint old place that is badly in
want of some one to live in it--an old house that is lonely for a
woman's sweet presence and gentle, busy hands, Lisbeth!"

"And the third?" she asked very softly.

"Surely you can guess that?"

"No, I can't, and, besides, there's Dorothy coming--and--oh,