gentleman who told us only this morning how much he adored physical courage.”

Her accusing blue eyes turned on Otho Maury, and she said, with light, laughing scorn:

“I thought as you pretended to be so very, very fond of me, that you would risk your life to save mine, but you proved yourself a coward after all!”

He was livid with secret, sullen rage, but putting a bold face on the matter, he answered, carelessly:

“Oh, I knew it was only a trick, and that you could swim as well as anybody; so I didn’t choose to humor your fancy to have me jump in the water and ruin my new fifty-dollar suit, like my friend Beresford here, who, it’s plain to be seen, is as mad as a March hare at the way[28] he was fooled. Come, mon ami, shall I drive you into town for some dry clothes?”

[28]

“If you please,” returned Beresford, who was indeed bitterly chagrined at being made the butt of such a joke, and angrily conscious of cutting such a poor figure among them all in his drenched clothing. He picked up his hat and coat and went away with Otho, who returned alone within the hour, saying that Beresford was in the sulks and wouldn’t come back.

“And as for you, little mischief,” he said, banteringly, to Floy, who had been over to a house close by and borrowed a pretty suit, in which she reappeared as fresh as a rose—“as for you, the lordly Beresford will never forgive you for making him appear ridiculous by jumping into the river to rescue a girl who could swim as well as he could. He said he should have liked to shake you for a naughty, saucy little vixen.”

“Who cares?” returned Floy, gayly, not the least abashed by Mr. Beresford’s resentment.

When the picnic was over, Maybelle slyly reminded her of her promise about Suicide Place.

“Oh, yes, I’m going to spend the night there, certainly,” she replied; and left the carriage at the gates of the grim old house, in spite of the remonstrances of many of the party, who were really uneasy at the thought of such a daring adventure.

Floy would not listen to any of them; she answered them with careless, merry banter; and as the carriages rolled away, they saw her standing inside the gates, waving her little hand in farewell, her slender, white-robed figure clearly defined in the gloom of the falling twilight.

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