but with the assurance of one who knows every inch of the land rushed forward waist-deep into the river; halted there, and called out a sharp command—

“Your paddle! Stretch out your paddle towards me! Hold hard! Lean out as far as you can!”

Darsie fell on her knees, and, leaning forward to the utmost extent of her body, held out the paddle as directed. There was a moment of sickening suspense, then came a halt, a jerk that seemed to pull her arms half out of the sockets, and the punt swung heavily towards the shore. The danger was over; she was helped on to the bank, where she collapsed in a little heap, while Ralph worked the punt slowly along to the jetty and fastened it to its chain.

The short breathing space had allowed Darsie to recover her self-possession, to master the overpowering temptation to cry, and to swallow the lump in her throat sufficiently to be able to say in a weak little voice—

“You’ve saved my life!”

“You’ve spoiled my trousers!” retorted Ralph in a matter-of-fact manner calculated to put an instant check on sentimentality. He sat down on the bank, unfastened his mud-soaked gaiters, and threw them on one side. “The river’s beastly dirty, and the mud sticks like the Dickens. A new suit, too! It will never look the same again.”

“I’m sorry.”

“So you ought to be. Things are bad enough as they are, but... How on earth did you come to be careering about alone in that punt?”

“I was waiting to see your sisters. I wandered down here, and thought I’d just sit in it for a rest, then I thought I could just paddle up and down. I managed quite well going up the stream; I got as far as the willow!” Even at that moment a faint note of pride crept into Darsie’s voice. “We grounded there, and I—I must have fallen asleep, I suppose, and that hateful old mill must needs choose the opportunity to begin working at that very moment... Just my luck!”

Ralph pursed his lips in eloquent comment.

“If it comes to that, I think you have had a fair amount of luck in another way! I heard the noise of the mill and came down to look on. If I hadn’t been there, you’d have been pretty considerably in Queer Street by this time. Nice thing it would have been for us to discover your drowned body in the millpond, and have had to tell your aunt!”

“I 

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