Putnam patriot., 1913-07-25

main current that would soon bring her to an old disused foot-bridge across which, before they had the boat, her father sometimes crossed to his pas ture lands. If she reached that place before she was. quite benumbed and overcome with the cold she was safe. l She ventured to unloose one hand from the rail and to take a firm grip of 1 Bruno's collar, but she did not dare trust herself entirely to his guidance.
 She knew that the water was very deep in this current. She had heard 1 her father say that the roots of the tall old oaks on the banks reached across i 1t. that logs had caught in them, and | that if a boy should havei a cramp while swimn bng there in summer it would be all day with him.
 She did not dare allow herself to think of the depths below, nor of the l black surface of the water roughened by the strong wind into high waves that made her giddy if she looked across them. She gazed upward. The sun was shining gloriously out of a clear blue sky. The wind roared and swayed the budding tree tops, few birds were fluttering about, and the | time seemed endless. The high banks Sloping down to the water were a vivid 1 green, with tender ferns sprouting here and there. Everything is lovely save that disobedient, wretehed, rebellious girl,' she said, speaking of herself as if il were someone else; s'that girl float ing so swiftly and the old dog padding SD strongly, and yet 1t seems as if they never will reach the foot bridge
 When, at length, she did reach it she had to trust to Bruno alone to guide her into smoother waters beneath the bank, where she soon felt the hard earth of the overfiowed pasture land beneath her feet. Yet, without the assistance of the faithful and strong old dog, it is doubtful if even then she would have reached the bank.
 l shore, scrambled upon the green turf, and in her wet clothing, so water soaked she could hardly walk, and her new dress, of which she had been so proud, completely ruined, she made her way across the pretty sheltered or chard 10 the house. She found the key where she had tucked it beneath the stone step, AS she had left the house in such great spirits only such a short time before, and unlocking, the back door stepped into the despised little kitchen.
 What a pleasant place it seemed. How friendly the polished cooking stove looked ss she opened the dampers and how grateful she was for the cheery fire as she replenished il from the well-stored wood-box. The sit ting room with It's blossoming plants in the sunny windows was equally cheery, and her own warm, sunny little bedroom just beyond never seemed so homelike and delightful. She was hardly dressed in warm crimson double-gown before she heard wheels in the yard, and Harriett Lee, one of her girl friends, was at the door.
 "Oh, Jane,n she cried, II am so thankful you are not gone. Where Is your fathers Papa wants to see him such a strange complication as has un- raveledl Why, my dear, what is the mattergn For poor Jane, quite over- whelmed at the sight of friendly, sympathetic face, had burst into tears. Os course the whole story from beginning to end came out, and as MT. Lee heard the particulars he said: VI will leave Helen here-l
 "But the partygn