“I just wish I could do as I’ve a mind to for once in my life!” said Lettie Glover crossly, when her mother refused to allow her to carry out a plan she had made. “I never can do anything I want to,” she went on. “I’ve heard that stepmothers were horrid, but I believe real mothers are just as bad!” and she flounced out of the room.

“Letitia!” called her mother sternly, as she was about to slam the door after her, “come back!”

She turned. “What do you want?” she snapped.

Mrs. Glover was very pale. Lettie had never seen her look so, and in spite of her anger she was frightened.

“I think you need a lesson, my daughter,” she said quietly, speaking evidently with difficulty, almost in gasps. “I will let you try your plan; you may do exactly as you choose for twenty-four hours; I shall not see you again till it is over,” and, rising, she went to her own room, and locked the door.

Lettie stood as if stunned; she remembered, suddenly, what the doctor had said, that her mother’s health was precarious, that she must not be agitated; and a feeling of dismay rushed over her; but a thought of what her mother had refused her returned, and she hardened herself again.

“I don’t believe what the old doctor said, anyway,” she muttered; “and I’ll have a good time for once! Oh! won’t I!” as the thought of what she would do came over her.

“In the first place,” she thought, “of course I’ll go on Stella’s moonlight excursion to-night; mother’s objections are nonsense. I know Stella’s friends are a little wild; but they’re awfully jolly all the same, and I know we’ll have lots of fun—and I do love a sail on the river. I’ll wear my new white dress, too,” she went on, as the thought of her perfect freedom grew upon her; “I don’t believe I’ll hurt it, and if it is soiled a little it can be done up before Aunt Joe’s party that mother’s so wonderfully particular about.”

It was now time to start for school, but she at once decided not to go. “I’ll have a good time for once,” she said, “and get rid of that horrid grammar lesson. Now I’ll go over to Stella’s and tell her I’m going;” and she went to her room to get ready.

“I won’t wear this old dress,” she said scornfully; “for once I’ll dress as I please; mother’s so notional about street dress!”

In her own room she threw off the scorned dark school dress and brought from her clothes-press a new light blue silk, just made for her to wear on very special occasions. “I’ll wear this,” she said; “I shan’t hurt it; and I want Stella to see that other folks can have nice dresses as well as she.”

Hurriedly she put on the pretty dress and the ribbons that went with it. Then, taking off her sensible street shoes, she put on the delicate ones that belonged to the dress.

Looking at herself in the glass, another thought occurred to her: “I’ll wear my gold beads, too; mother never lets me wear them in the street, but other folks wear them, and I don’t see any use of having things if you can’t wear them.”

From a jewel case in her drawer she took a beautiful string of large gold beads. They had belonged to her grandmother, and had been given to her because she was named after her, Letitia, though she had softened it into Lettie, “and little enough, too,” she had said, “to pay for having such an old-fashioned name, when Mildred, or Ethel, or Eva, or Maude would have been so much prettier.”

The beads she clasped around her throat, then she pinned on the little gold chatelaine watch her mother had given her at Christmas, and—resolving for once to wear as much jewelry as she liked—she slipped on to her finger a ring bequeathed to her by her Aunt Letitia. It was of diamonds; five beautiful stones in a row, worth a great deal of money, and far too fine for a schoolgirl to wear, her mother said. Much as she longed to wear it and show it to the girls, she had never been allowed to do so. “Now,” she exultingly thought, “now I’ll have the good of it for once!”

To all this finery she added her best hat, which had just come home from the milliner’s, and taking a pair of fresh white kid gloves in her hand, which she couldn’t put on to cover up that ring, she started out, feeling more elegant than she had ever felt in her life before.

The way to Stella’s was through a corner of the park, and everything that morning was so fresh and sweet that Lettie lingered as she passed through. There were not many people there so early in the morning, and Lettie paid no attention to a rough-looking man she passed, sitting on a bench and looking as if he had passed the night there. Her way lay on the border of the wilder and more secluded part of the park, and her mother had always warned her to avoid this part when she was alone. She had therefore never penetrated the fascinating little paths which led among the close-growing trees and bushes, though she had always longed to do so. Now, on the day of her perfect freedom, the temptation came up again. She hesitated; her mother’s warning recurred to her.

“I don’t believe there’s a bit of danger,” she said to herself; “mother’s so old-fashioned. Girls don’t do as they did when she was young; they can take care of themselves nowadays. I mean to see where this little path goes; it looks so lovely and cool in there.”

She turned into the path. It was charming; birds were singing, flowers blooming, and she walked on and on, enchanted.

After a little, however, she was struck with the loneliness of the place, and a thought of her mother’s warning made her turn back towards the more frequented walks. As she turned she found herself facing the man she had noticed on the bench, and a panic seized her. She tried to rush past him, but he barred the way. She tried to scream, but she could not make a sound; and the man spoke.

“No you don’t, my fine miss! If you make a noise I’ll brain you!” and he flourished a heavy stick he carried. “If you behave yourself like a lady,” he went on, less roughly, “I’ll not hurt you in the least.”

“Let me pass!” cried Lettie, white with terror.

“Certainly, miss,” said he gruffly, “in one minute; just as soon as you give me those beads on your neck, and that watch; and if you hand ’em over quietly yourself you’ll save me the trouble of gagging you with this,”—dragging a filthy handkerchief from his pocket,—“and taking them off myself; ’n I ain’t no lady’s maid, either,” he added grimly, “’n I might possibly hurt you!”

Frightened half out of her wits, Lettie raised her hand to unclasp her necklace, when the flash of the diamonds on her finger caught the sharp eye of the thief.

“Golly,” he said, “better ’n I thought! I’ll trouble you to slip off that ring, too.”

“Oh, no!” cried Lettie, “I can’t!”

“Oh, well! I can take it off myself,” he said. “If it’s tight I’ll just take finger and all,” and he took out and opened a great clasp knife.

Then Lettie saw the uselessness of protest, and with despair in her heart she drew off the ring and dropped it into the dirty hand extended to receive it. Instantly it followed the beads and watch into his pocket, and he stood aside, leaving the path open for her to pass, saying, with a horrid grin, “Now you may go, miss, and thank you kindly for your generosity.”

Along that path Lettie flew till she reached one of the main avenues where people were constantly passing, when she fell into a seat, wild-eyed, and almost fainting.

“What’s the matter?” asked a gruff policeman who came near. “What you been doing, miss?”

“Oh, go after the thief!” she cried; “I’ve been robbed.”

“Which way did he go?” asked the man, evidently not believing her, the idea of being robbed in broad daylight, here in the park, appearing to seem absurd to him.

“Down that path,” cried Lettie excitedly, “a great rough man with a big stick! Oh! do go! he has my gold beads and my diamond ring and”—

Whether the policeman did not care to encounter a rough thief with a big stick, or whether he really did not believe her, he here interrupted with:—

“I guess he has your sense, too! I think I better run you in—you’ll do fine for the crazy ward!”

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake, no!” cried Lettie, this new danger filling her with terror. “Never mind; let him go, but don’t arrest me. It would kill my mother, and me too!”

“Well, then, don’t talk so crazy,” said he gruffly. “I don’t believe your story—nor nobody won’t, an’ if it’s true, ’n I should get him, I’d have to lock you up for a witness. Tell me where you live, ’n I’ll see you safe home.”

“Oh, no!” she cried, tears running down her face, “I’ll go right home. My mother is sick, and it would kill her!”

The man was evidently touched by her distress.

“Well, miss, you just walk along, and I’ll keep you in sight to see that no more robbers get after you.”

With that she was forced to be contented, and with all the strength left to her she hurried along the paths towards home, the policeman following at a little distance and keeping her in sight till she ran up the steps of her home and disappeared inside.

Lettie ran up to her room, and, locking the door, flung herself on the bed, where she had a long cry, partly from nervous strain from the fright she had suffered, and partly for the loss of her treasures.

“I was a fool!” she said bitterly. “Mother always told me it was unsafe to wear jewelry in the streets and to go into those solitary paths in the park; but I didn’t believe her. I was a fool, and I’m well paid for it! I’ll never tell her—never!

“And I shall never dare to let father know, either,” she went on later; “he’d scour the world to find that man, and I should have to be locked up as a witness,”—she shuddered,—“I’d rather lose everything.”

A good deal subdued by this experience, she almost decided to give up the particular thing which had given her her liberty for the day,—the moonlight sail on the river. But after hours, when she had calmed down and decided that she would keep her experiences and her losses a secret from everybody, the thought of the great temptation again stirred her, and she finally resolved to carry out her plan and go.

“It’s likely,” she said to herself, “that I’ll never have another chance to do as I like,—not for years, anyway,—and I’ll have the good of this one.” Having come to this decision, Lettie found herself hungry, for she had been too excited to take any luncheon at the usual hour. She accordingly went down to the pantry where the cook had spread out the morning’s baking; there was a goodly array of pies and cakes and other good things cooling on the shelves, and Lettie thought herself in great luck.

“Now I’ll have a good lunch,” she said to herself, “and no bread and butter, either! I hate bread and butter!”

She helped herself to several little cakes which cook made particularly nice, and with them she ate part of a jar of marmalade which she opened for the purpose; next she took a tart or two, and then turned her attention to the row of pies on another shelf. Looking them over carefully, she chose her favorite, a custard pie. “Now I won’t eat any old crust, as mother makes me,” she said. So she took a spoon and began on the contents of the pie, thus demolishing, I regret to say, a whole pie. Then, calmly dipping into a pan of milk, taking cream and all, she drank a glass of that, and, feeling fully satisfied, she left the pantry, and returned to her room to prepare for the evening.

“I guess I’ll wear this silk dress after all,” she said to herself, for she was invited to stay all night with Stella after the sail. “I’ll have to come home through the streets in the morning, and if the white one gets soiled it won’t look very nice; and besides, I want mother to see that I can take care of my clothes myself.”

So, wearing her pretty silk dress and delicate shoes, and carrying another pair of gloves,—for she had lost the white ones in the excitement of the morning,—she started out, leaving word with the servants that she should stay with Stella all night.

She reached the house safely, and was warmly welcomed by Stella, and in the excitement of planning and talking over the sail of the evening she almost forgot, for a time, the unpleasant affair of the morning.

“It’s a pity you wore that pretty new dress,” said Stella, who was clad in a sailor suit of dark wool, for the boating; “I’m afraid you’ll spoil it,—a boat’s a dirty place.”

“I guess I shan’t hurt it,” said Lettie.

“I wish you’d wear one of my woolen suits,” said Stella; “I hate to see a pretty dress spoiled, and that couldn’t be hurt.”

“No, indeed!” said Lettie; “I couldn’t wear any one’s dress, and if that gets spoiled—why, I’ll have to get another,” she added proudly, though she knew in her heart that her mother could not afford another, that season.

“Well,” said Stella, “you must of course do as you choose.”

The boating party consisted, besides Stella and Lettie, and Stella’s cousin Maud, of Stella’s brother and two of his friends. These two young men it was to whom Lettie’s mother had objected. They were rather wild fellows, sons of rich men, and not obliged to do anything, given up to sports and rather noisy pranks in the city. They were intimate with Stella’s brother, who was one of their kind also.

The moon rose about nine o’clock that evening, and at that hour the gay party took their way to the little boathouse, where they embarked in a small sailboat which was waiting for them.

The young men understood the management of a boat, and for a time all went well. They talked and laughed and sang, and enjoyed the moonlight and the rapid motion, and Lettie thought she never had such a lovely time in her life.

After awhile the spirit of teasing began to show itself among the boys. They liked to frighten the girls, as thoughtless boys often do, and after such harmless pranks as spattering water over them, to hear their little screams of protest, they fell to the more dangerous, but very common, play of rocking the boat, threatening to upset it.

The girls, resolved not to be frightened, for a long time did not cry out, and this drew the boys on to greater exertions, determined to make them scream and beg. At last the thing happened that so often does happen to reckless boys,—a sudden puff of wind caught the sail, the boat lurched, and in a moment the whole party were struggling in the water.

Thoroughly frightened now, the boys, who could all swim, at first struck out for the shore, which was at some distance. Then, recalled to their senses by the cries of the girls, two of them turned back to their aid. Whether they would have reached the shore with their frightened and unmanageable burdens is uncertain, but, a tugboat happening to come along, they were all picked up and carried to a dock a mile or more below.

There, after waiting a half hour, drenched and chilled all through, while the boys tried in vain to get a carriage,—for by this time it was very late,—the party took a street car, which carried them up town, but not near Stella’s, and they had to wait another half hour at a crossing for another car.

It was two o’clock in the morning before Lettie, with Stella and her brother, reached the house, a wretched, draggled-looking, and very cross party, all without hats,—for these had been lost in the river,—and Lettie, her fine silk dress a ruin, her delicate shoes a shapeless mass from which the water squirted as she walked.

By breakfast time Lettie, who was a delicate girl, was in a high fever, and the doctor, who was hastily called in, decided that she was threatened with pneumonia. Lettie’s mother was notified, and hurried down, and, bundled up in many wraps, Lettie was conveyed in an ambulance to her home and her own bed, where she remained for weeks, battling for her life, delirious much of the time, and living over in fancy the horrors of the day she had had her own way.

Some weeks later, after her recovery, her mother, one morning, said quietly, “Lettie, let us count up the cost of your doing as you liked.”

Lettie trembled, but her mother went on.

“There’s your dress and hat and shoes ruined and lost in the river—consequently the loss of your visit to your Aunt Joe; there’s your illness, which deprived you of the school-closing festivities; and the doctor’s bill, which took all the money I had saved for our trip to the seashore this summer.”

She was going on, but Lettie, now thoroughly penitent, suddenly resolved to make a clean breast of all her losses, and have the thing over.

“Oh, mother!” she cried, burying her face in her mother’s lap, “that isn’t all my losses; I must tell you, I can’t bear it any longer alone,” and then with sobs and tears she told the dismal story of the robbery.

“Lettie,” said her mother, “I knew all that the very day it happened. After you had gone to Stella’s the policeman came to the house to see if you had told him the truth. When he told me what you had said I went to your room and discovered the loss.”

“Oh, mother!” cried Lettie, “I’ll never—never”—

“If I had not learned it then,” went on her mother, “I should have known it later, for in your delirium you talked of nothing else; you went over that fearful scene constantly. I feared it would really affect your reason.”

“Oh, mother!” cried Lettie, “you never told me!”

“We will not speak of it again,” said her mother; “I think you have learned your lesson.”

“Do you think it ended well, Kristy?” asked her mother as she finished the story.

“Well,” said Kristy hesitating, “I suppose it was a good thing for her to find out that her mother was right,—but wasn’t it horrid for her to lose all those beautiful things!”

“It was a costly lesson,” said Mrs. Crawford; “but I think it was much needed—she was a willful girl.”

Just at that moment the door opened and Uncle Tom entered.

“Well,” he said, “how did Kristy get through the rainy day that spoiled her picnic?”

“In the usual way,” answered Mrs. Crawford.

“Levying on everybody for stories?” asked Uncle Tom.

“Yes,” said Kristy; “and I’ve had the loveliest ones”—

“Kristy,” said Uncle Tom, “I want to give you a birthday present, but knowing your preference for stories, I did not venture to offer you anything else. So, happening to hear a specially interesting one to-day, I have persuaded the relater to come and tell it to you.”

Mrs. Crawford looked up in surprise. “Tom,” she said doubtingly, “what new pranks are you up to now? You’re almost as young as Kristy herself.”

Uncle Tom tried to look very meek, but there was a twinkle in his eye which did not look meek at all.

“Please, sister mine,” he began, “our niece Katherine—otherwise Kate—has just got back from San Francisco, or what is left of it. She went through the earthquake and the fire, lost all her goods and chattels, and found a baby, which she has brought home. She is in the hall waiting to be received.”

Before the last words were spoken Mrs. Crawford had risen and hurried into the hall, where, sure enough, the refugee from San Francisco, a girl about fourteen years old, sat smiling, with a pretty little girl of perhaps two years in her lap.

“Uncle Tom wanted me to make my visit to you to-night,” she said, after she had been warmly welcomed and taken into the sitting-room, “as a present to Kristy, who is as fond of stories as ever, I hear.”

“Indeed she is!” said Mrs. Crawford, “and in this case we shall all be very much interested to hear your adventures. It must have been a fearful experience.”

“It was,” said Kate; “but now that it is over I think that I, at least, have gained more than I lost, because I found this baby—though what I shall do with her I don’t know yet. Of course I have tried my best to find her parents, for, if living, they must be nearly crazy about her.”

“Surely they must,” said Mrs. Crawford; “she is a darling.”

“Well!” interrupted Uncle Tom, looking at his watch, “time is passing; is Kristy to have her story?”

With a smile at his pretended anxiety, Kate began.