hing else; Fani and Emma were absorbed in their own
plans and only wanted to be let alone; and Elsli, feeling that her
society was not important to any one, sat by herself on the bench under
the lindens, occupied with her own thoughts by the hour together.
Sometimes she grew unhappy at the thought that she was living here so
well-off and at ease, while her father and mother still had such a hard
life at home. Often she thought about Nora, and wondered if she had
forgotten to ask the heavenly Father to call her to himself. She could
well be spared from the earth, where no one needed her, and she longed
to go. To tell the truth, Elsli dreaded to look forward. She did not
feel at home in Mrs. Stanhope's house; she had a constant sense of
unfitness for the position; yet when she thought of going back to her
parents, she knew that there she should be equally out of place. So the
poor child was living a lonely life at beautiful Rosemount, and thinking
herself a useless and superfluous being on the face of the earth.

Down along the bank of the river, a narrow foot-path ran for some
distance towards a thick clump of willows, in which it disappeared.
Elsli had often followed this path by herself; it was so quiet that she
liked it particularly; she never met any one there, for it led only from
Mrs. Stanhope's grounds to the willows. To-day, after Elsli had sat
alone for a time, she rose and walked along this path, and gazed at the
ever-moving waves as they rushed headlong toward the sea. Sunk in
thought, she came at last nearer to the willows than she had ever been
before. The bushes grew larger and higher and became real trees; from a
distance they looked like a thick wood that reached far into the water.
Here was complete solitude; not a creature was to be seen, and the plash
of the water below was the only sound that broke the stillness. Suddenly
a loud scream startled the air. Elsli drew back in alarm. Louder and
louder grew the sounds of distress, now pausing, then beginning afresh.
The child, recovering her courage, hurried forward to the spot from
which they came. Behind the first low-growing clump of willows the
ground was wet and swampy; and fast caught in the bog stood two
children;--a little girl, who was screaming with all her might, and a
boy, who was tugging at his sister's arm as hard as he could. When he
found that he could not pull her out he too began to cry aloud. Elsli
came to their aid, and lifted the little