"You have saved me from a ducking, if not worse," he said, giving
the little rescuing hand a warm pressure.
"Oh!" exclaimed she, panting, "please don't do any more dreadful
things. I shall be careful how I make any wishes in your hearing
again."
"I am sorry to hear you say that," he replied. And then there was
an awkward silence.
Elsie could think of nothing better than to refer to the
handkerchief they had left behind.
"Will you wait for me till I run and get it?" he asked.
"I will go back with you, if you will permit me," she said
timidly.
"Indeed, I could not ask so much of you as that."
"And yet you could about the same as risk your neck to gratify a
whim of mine," she said more gratefully than she intended.
"Please do not think," he replied earnestly, "that I have been
practicing cheap heroics. As I said, I was a country boy, and in
my early home thought nothing of doing such things." But even the
brief reference to that vanished home caused him to sigh deeply,
and Elsie gave him a wistful look of sympathy.
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