e."

The young man was dazed. He could say nothing at first, but managed
finally to blunder out:

"How did you know that?"

"I saw you and Billy look at each other, and saw you push down hard on
the stake. Why did you do it?"

Jack was truthful at least, and, furthermore, he had perception keen
enough to see that in his present strait was afforded opportunity for
speaking to the point on a subject he had feared to venture. He was
reckless now.

"I wanted to carry you ashore in my arms," he said.

There was, as any thoughtful girl would admit, really nothing in all
this for Jennie to get very angry over, and, to do her credit, it must
be added that she showed no anger at all. Of the details of what more
was said, information is unfortunately and absolutely lacking, but
certain it is that before Jennie's home was reached Jack's arm had found
a place not very far from that which it had occupied the afternoon
before.

They marry young in the country, but seventeen and eighteen are ages,
which, even on the farm, are not considered sufficiently advanced for
such grave venture, and so, though Jack's wooing prospered famously,
there was no wedding in the spring. There was the most trustful and
delightful of understandings, though, and three years later Jennie came
from the town to live permanently on the farm, and her name was changed
to Burrows.

"On account of the Red Revenger was a pirate craft, and took to the
water naturally, Jack got braced up to begin his courting, and so got
married," said Billy, in explanation of the event.

A MURDERER'S ACCOMPLICE

It is part of my good fortune in life to know a beautiful and lovable
woman. She is as sweet, it seems to me, as any woman can be who has come
into this world. She is good. She is not very rich, but she helps the
needy as far as she can from her moderate purse. I have known her to
attend at the bedside of a poor dying person when the doctor had told
her that the trouble might be smallpox. I should say, at a venture, that
this woman will go to heaven when she dies. But she will not go to
heaven unless ignorance is an excuse for wickedness. If she does go
there, it must be as the savage goes who knows no better than to do
things which thoughtful people, to whom what is good has been taught,
count as cruel and merciless. As the savage is a murderer, so is she the
accomplice of a murderer, although it is possible that by the Great
Judge neither may be so c