she
was like a raging lioness."

"A lioness!" echoed Rivers.

"By evening, help came."

"How did you know all this?"

"Oh! Leila told me some--and the rest--well, sir, I saw it. I've been
here often."

The rector studied the excited young face. "Would you like to have been
there, Jack?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I should have been afraid, and--" Then quickly, "I suppose he was; she
was; any one would have been."

"Like as not. He for her, most of all. But there are many kinds of fear,
Jack."

John was silent, and the rector waited. Then the boy broke out, "Leila
told me last week I was a coward."

"Indeed! Leila told you that! That wasn't like her, Jack. Why did she say
it?"

This was a friendly hearer, whose question John had invited. To-day the
human relief of confession was great to the boy. He told the story, in
bits, carefully, as if to have it exact were essential. Mark Rivers
watched him through his pipe smoke, trying to think of what he could or
should say to this small soul in trouble. The boy was lying on the floor
looking up, his hands clasped behind his head. "That's all, sir. It's
dreadful."

The young rector's directness of character set him on the right path. "I
don't know just what to say to you, Jack. You see, you have been taught
to be afraid of horses and dogs, of exposure to rain, and generally of
being hurt, until--Well, Jack, if your mother had not been an invalid,
she would not have educated you to fear, to have no joy in risks. Now you
are in more wholesome surroundings--and--in a little while you will
forget this small trouble."

The young clergyman felt that in his puzzle he had been rather vague, and
added pleasantly, "You have the courage of truth. That's moral courage.
Tom would have explained or denied, or done anything to get out of the
scrape, if the Squire had come down on him. You would not."

"Oh! thank you," said John. "I'm sorry I troubled you."

"You did in a way; but you did not when you trusted a man who is your
friend. Let us drop it. Where are those Indian graves?"

They went out and wandered in the woods, until John said, "Oh! this must
be that arbutus Leila talks about, just peeping out from under the snow."
They gathered a large bunch.

"It is the first breath of the fragrance of spring," said Rivers.

"Oh! yes, sir. How sweet it is! It does not grow in Europe."

"No, we own it with many other good and pleasant things."

When they came to the house,