Annis was in Mildred's room waiting to say good-night to her cousin, rather uneasy, too, lest she had got her into trouble, by coaxing her into the canoe.

"O Elsie!" she said, as the latter came in, "was your papa displeased? did he punish you? You look as if you had been crying."

"He said he was not pleased with me," Elsie answered, brushing away a tear; "that was punishment enough, I'm sure; but he forgave me the next minute and kissed me good-night."

"Oh, I'm glad that was all!" Annis exclaimed, giving Elsie a hug. "I began to be almost afraid he had whipped you."

"No, indeed! he never did that, and I don't believe he ever will," Elsie said, a quick, vivid blush dyeing her fair face and neck.

The next day the little girls were taking a walk on the river bank, Aunt Chloe plodding along a little in the rear, that she might watch over her nursling.

A boy coming from the opposite direction startled them by a loud "Hello, Tim! where are you going?"

Two boys were just passing them, and the younger, who looked to be about ten years old, made answer in a surly tone, and in words so profane that the little girls shuddered with horror.

"Well, I wouldn't want to go 'long with you; not to that place," remarked the first jeeringly; "but what's the use o' bein' so all-fired cross—swearin' at a feller just for askin' a civil question?"

"Come, Bill, just you let him alone," said Tim's companion; "he's worked up and mad, 'cause his mother told him not to go to the river, and that's where we're going this minute."

"Well, then, George, if he gits drowned, I guess he'll go where he said he was a-goin'," remarked Bill, passing on.

The little girls stood still, watching the other two as they hurried on down the bank, entered a canoe that lay on the water, made fast by a rope to a tree, loosed it, and pushed out into the stream.

They were not careful as Cyril had been to keep near the shore, and presently the current was carrying them down stream very rapidly.

A few hundred yards below the spot where they had embarked, a wooden bridge had formerly spanned the river; it had been torn down shortly before this, but the posts were left standing in the water. Against one of these the canoe struck and instantly overset, throwing the boys into the water where it was deepest and most dangerous.

The little girls and their attendant saw the mishap, and ran screaming toward some men who were at work at no great distance. The instant the men comprehended what had occurred, they made all haste to the scene of the disaster, and used every effort to rescue the lads.

They succeeded in bringing George out alive, but Tim had sunk to rise no more. They could not even find the body.

When this announcement was made, the two little girls, who had stood looking on in intense excitement and full of distress for the imperilled boys, burst into bitter weeping.

They hurried home, crying as they went, to tell the sad story.

Mrs. Keith was in the sitting-room, busied with some sewing, as usual, Mr. Dinsmore with her, when the children came rushing in, crying as if their hearts would break.

"Why, my child, what is the matter?" Mr. Dinsmore asked, in extreme surprise and alarm, as Elsie threw herself into his arms and clung to him, sobbing convulsively.

"O mother, mother! we've just seen a boy drowned!" cried Annis, burying her face in her mother's lap. "It was Tim Jones, and his mother had told him not to go to the river. And we heard him say such wicked words as he was going."

"And O papa! he's dead," sobbed Elsie, "and I can't even pray for him! O papa! he has lost his soul!"

"We do not know that certainly, dear daughter," he said, trying to comfort her; "we may have a little hope, for possibly he may have cried to Jesus for pardon and salvation, even after he was in the water."

"And Jesus is so kind, so ready to forgive and save us," she said, growing calmer. "But, O papa! it's such a little hope we can have that he did find the way, and get a new heart in that one minute!"

"Yes, that is too sadly true," he sighed. "Yet the thought uppermost in my mind just now is, What if this had happened to my child yesterday! O! my darling, how could I have borne such a loss? My heart aches for the parents of that boy."

"Dear papa, God was very good to us," she whispered, laying her cheek to his, as he held her close to his heart. "Oh, I am glad he did not let me fall into the river and drown, though I was so naughty as to go without your leave."

"But I had not forbidden you," he said tenderly; "and I know that my little girl loves Jesus, and tries to serve him; so I should have been spared the terrible pain of fearing that you were lost to me forever. Yet I cannot be thankful enough that I have you still, my precious, precious child!"

His tones were so low that Mrs. Keith could hardly have caught the words, even had she not been occupied, as she was, in soothing and comforting Annis.