h the flower into the bottom of the boat. Then
Rosamond, almost wild at the danger it was in as he struggled to rise,
hurried to save it, but somehow between them it came in pieces, and all
its petals of fretted silver were scattered about the boat. When the
boy got up, and saw the ruin his companion had occasioned, he burst
into tears, and having the long stalk of the flower still in his hand,
struck her with it across the face. It did not hurt her much, for he
was a very little fellow, but it was wet and slimy. She tumbled rather
than rushed at him, seized him in her arms, tore him from his
frightened grasp, and flung him into the water. His head struck on the
boat as he fell, and he sank at once to the bottom, where he lay
looking up at her with white face and open eyes.

The moment she saw the consequences of her deed she was filled with
horrible dismay. She tried hard to reach down to him through the water,
but it was far deeper than it looked, and she could not. Neither could
she get her eyes to leave the white face: its eyes fascinated and fixed
hers; and there she lay leaning over the boat and staring at the death
she had made. But a voice crying, "Ally! Ally!" shot to her heart, and
springing to her feet she saw a lovely lady come running down the grass
to the brink of the water with her hair flying about her head.

"Where is my Ally?" she shrieked.

But Rosamond could not answer, and only stared at the lady, as she had
before stared at her drowned boy.

Then the lady caught sight of the dead thing at the bottom of the
water, and rushed in, and, plunging down, struggled and groped until
she reached it. Then she rose and stood up with the dead body of her
little son in her arms, his head hanging back, and the water streaming
from him.

"See what you have made of him, Rosamond!" she said, holding the body
out to her; "and this is your second trial, and also a failure."

The dead child melted away from her arms, and there she stood, the wise
woman, on her own hearth, while Rosamond found herself beside the
little well on the floor of the cottage, with one arm wet up to the
shoulder. She threw herself on the heather-bed and wept from relief and
vexation both.

The wise woman walked out of the cottage, shut the door, and left her
alone. Rosamond was sobbing, so that she did not hear her go. When at
length she looked up, and saw that the wise woman was gone, her misery
returned afresh and tenfold, and she wep