rum drudging of a schoolboy, in learning and unlearning, is
but the easing the wheels of his ignorant brain."

Well, whether Oscar laid this new thought to heart or not, certain it is
that he kept zealously to lessons and Mr. Fane, took kindly to Inna, and
called her "a little brick," and all the many flattering names found in
a boy's vocabulary. But his wound would not heal, for which the weather
was blamed, and the constant friction he gave it, until his two doctors
advised he should not race about so much; and so it came about that
November was well on its way before the arm was well, and Inna saw that
abyss of mystery, the Black Hole. Very like a lake, with an
unfathomable hole in the centre--or said to be unfathomable, because it
had been sounded by the villagers and no bottom found--over-spanned by a
bridge, its water having some hidden outlet, and lying on the north side
of Owl's Nest Park, among tangled bushes and faded herbage: such was
Black Hole. It was on a sunless hazy afternoon when they paid their
visit to the gloomy place. Oscar betook himself with boy-like zest to
testing the depth of the so-called unfathomable hole with a long pole he
used for leaping with, Inna watching him, and wondering the while
whether the hole, with its darkly swirling waters, were bottomless, as
it was said to be.

"Have a care," her companion had warned her. "Don't lean against the
rails of the bridge; the old thing is as crazy as crazy."

But, like a girl, as he said afterwards, she must needs forget; and lo!
as he poked and fathomed as he had often done before and made no new
discovery, a scream rang out, and he looked up to find Inna and the rail
had both vanished.

"I told you so," said he, like a lad in a nightmare, his hair standing
on end; and then in he sprang, with the forlorn hope of bringing her
out. Ah! there was a dark story told of the victim once sucked in by
that yawning mouth.

CHAPTER V.

INNA AT THE OWL'S NEST--MORE WRONG STEPS.

But that strong unseen Hand, so often stretched out in our great
extremities, was stretched out now, although only for the saving of one
little girl. It guided the boy to the spot where the poor little
floundering bundle rose to the surface, helped him to play the hero, and
to snatch her from those yawning watery jaws, that would fain have
swallowed her--she was shudderingly near to her end, but after a time he
grasped her tightly, and drew her to him.

At last he w