rsion, with light
feet. Was it the air again, or was it the new consciousness that I was
developing into a beloved and coveted beau?

I stepped into the cottage through the low window, as I often did. At
the same moment the cover of the wood-box flew up, and I beheld the
rosy, good-natured visage of Miss Pray's orphan girl looking out: she
put her finger on her lip.

"Sh!"

"What is it?" I said.

She pointed upward. I saw on the long spike which held the horseshoe
over the door a pail of water so delicately hung that whoever first
entered there must receive its contents in one fell unmitigated deluge
upon the crown.

"Sh! It 's Wesley's" (her fellow-orphan) "it 's Wesley's birthday. I
ain't got no present to give him, so I'm going to _souze_ him with cold
water: he 's bringin' in some wood--there 's steps! Sh!"

She ducked into the wood-box, which had subterranean channels of
escape, with anticipated delight, and put down the cover, leaving me
alone in the room with the approaching victim and in the unenviable
position of appearing to be the sole perpetrator of this malign deed.

I had the merest time to master this idea, when the door swung in upon
its hinges, and not Wesley, but Miss Pray herself, stood before me, a
mad and a blighted object.

I gazed at her, horror-struck, and was endeavoring to speak, when
Wesley, staggering in behind her with his arms full of wood, came to my
relief. "O Miss Pray, 'twan't major, honest 'twan't, nor 'twan't me,
Miss Pray: 'twas that Belle O'Neill, an' she 's mos' got to the graves
by this time. I seed her runnin', through the windy. O Lord! O Miss
Pray! how wet you looks when you're as wet as you be now, Miss Pray!"

"Indeed it was not meant for you," I cried. "Belle meant it for a
birthday jest on Wesley."

"Oh, I wish it had b'en, Miss Pray," gasped poor Wesley, with ill-timed
sympathy; "I'm so much more used to bein' wet 'n you be."

It was doubtful toward which Miss Pray was waxing most warm--the
recusant Belle O'Neill, or the stupid, open-mouthed Wesley--when I
stepped in at this juncture and entreated her with the Kobbes'
invitation.

"I'll go," said she, with evident satisfaction gleaming even through
her dripping state, "'s soon 's I've changed my do's and whipped Belle
O'Neill."

During the former process I volunteered, as one whom she would trust,
to watch for Belle, and lure her, if possible, to the house. I
repeatedly saw that damsel's head