gardener, earnestly adjuring
Master Jack to keep off the south end of it.

"Th' ice is good enough at this end; but 'tis a deal too thin o'er yon.
You'd best have a care, of you'll be in ere you know aught about it."

"Thou go learn thy gra'mmer!" [teach thy grandmother] said Jack
scornfully. "Hallo, maids! Come on the ice--'tis as jolly as a play."

Clare smilingly declined, but Blanche stepped on the ice, aided by
Jack's hand, and was soon sliding away as lithely and merrily as
himself.

"Ay me! yonder goeth the dinner bell," said Blanche at last. "Help me
back on the bank, Jack; I must away."

"Butter the dinner bell!" responded Jack. "Once more--one grand slide,
Snowdrop."

This had been Jack's pet name for his youngest sister in childhood, and
he used it now when he was in a particularly good temper.

"Master! Master! yo're comin' too near th' thin!" shouted old Abel.

Jack and Blanche, executing their final and most superb slide, heard or
cared not. They came flying along the pond,--when all at once there was
a shriek of horror, and Jack--who was not able to stop himself--finished
the slide alone. Blanche had disappeared. Near the south end of the
great pond was a round jagged hole in the ice, showing where she had
gone down.

"Hold her up, Master, quick!" cried old Abel. "Dunnot let her be sucked
under, as what happens! Creep along to th' edge, and lay you down; and
when hoo comes to th' top, catch her by her gown, or her hure [hair], or
aught as 'll hold. I'll get ye help as soon as I can;" and as fast as
his limbs would carry him, Abel hurried away.

Jack did not move.

"I shall be drowned! I can't swim!" he murmured, with white lips, "I
would sure go in likewise."

Neither he nor Clare saw in the first moment of shocked excitement that
somebody else had been quicker and braver than they.

"I have her!" said John Feversham's voice, just a little less calm than
usual. "I think I can keep her head above water till help cometh. Jack
Enville, fetch a rope or a plank--quick!"

They saw then that Feversham was lying on his face on the ice, and
holding firmly to Blanche by her fair hair, thus bringing her face above
the water.

"O Jack, Jack!" cried Clare in an agony. "Where is a rope or plank?"

Even in that moment, Jack was pre-eminently a gentleman--in his own
sense of the term.

"How should I know? I am no serving-man."

Clare dashed off towards the house without another wor