"And," I was beginning again, but meeting her searching glance, stopped.  "And you forgave me, Lisbeth," I ended. 

 "Did I?" she said, with raised brows. 

 "Didn't you?" 

 "Not that I remember." 

 "In the boat?" 

 "I never said so?" 

 "Not in words, perhaps, but you implied as much." Lisbeth had the grace to blush. 

 "Do I understand that I am not forgiven after all?" 

 "Not until I know why you did such a mad, thoughtless trick," she answered, with that determined set of her chin which I knew so well. 

 That I should thus shoulder the responsibility for the Imp's misdeeds was ridiculous, and wrong as it was unjust, for if ever boy deserved punishment that boy was the Imp. And yet, probably because he was the Imp, or because of that school-boy honour which forbids "sneaking," and which I carried with me still, I held my peace; seeing which, Lisbeth turned and left me. 

 I stood where I was, with head bent in an attitude suggestive of innocence, broken hopes, and gentle resignation, but in vain; she never once looked back. Still, martyr though I was, the knowledge that I had immolated myself upon the altar of friendship filled me with a sense of conscious virtue that I found not ill-pleasing. Howbeit, seeing I am but human after all, I sat down and re-filling my pipe, fell once more anathematising the Imp. 

 "Hist!" 

 A small shape flittered from behind an adjacent tree, and lo! the subject of my thoughts stood before me. 

 Imp' I said "come here."  He obeyed readily.  "When you cut that rope and set your Auntie Lisbeth adrift, you didn't remember the man who was drowned in the weir last month, did you?" 

 "No!" he answered, staring. 

 "Of course not," I nodded; "but all the same it is not your fault that your Auntie Lisbeth is not drowned—just as he was." 

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