hn's visions.

Near at hand, dotted all over the field, bloomed the wild snowdrops in
utmost profusion, with a looser habit of growth, a longer stalk, and a
wider flower than the garden variety. Lovely pure-white blossoms, with
their tiny green markings, they stood like fairy bells among the grass,
so dainty and perfect, it seemed almost a sacrilege to disturb them. The
girls, however, were not troubled with any such scruples, and set to
work to pick in hot haste.

"I'm going down by the stream," said Ulyth; "one gets far the best there
if one hunts about, and I brought my stick."

Rona, Addie and Lizzie joined her, and with considerable difficulty
scrambled down to the water's edge. For those who preferred quality to
quantity, and who did not mind getting torn by briers, this was
undoubtedly the place to come. In pockets of fine river-sand, their
roots stretching into the stream, grew the very biggest and finest of
the snowdrops. Most of them peeped through a very tangle of brambles;
but who minded scratched arms and torn sleeves to secure such treasures?

"Look at these. The stalks must be nine inches long, and the flower's
nearly as big as a Lent lily," exulted Ulyth. "I shall send them to
Mother, with some hazel catkins and some lovely moss."

"Everybody will be sending away boxes to-night," said Addie. "The
postman will have a load."

"What's that?" cried Lizzie, for a sudden rush and scuffle sounded on
the other side of the stream, a rat leaped wildly from the bank, and a
shaved poodle half jumped, half fell after it into the water.

The rat was gone in an eighth of a second, but the dog found himself in
difficulties. It was a case of "look before you leap", and a fat,
wheezy, French poodle is not at home in a quick-rushing stream.

"Oh, the poor little beast's drowning!" exclaimed Ulyth in horror.

Rona, with extreme promptitude, had flown to the rescue. Close by where
they stood the trunk of a half-fallen alder stretched out over the
water. It was green and slippery, and anything but an inviting bridge,
but she crawled along it somehow, and, clinging with one hand, contrived
to reach the dog's collar with the other and hold him up. What she would
have done next it is impossible to say, for he was too heavy to lift in
her already precarious position; but at that moment a gentleman,
evidently in quest of his pet, parted the hazel boughs and took in the
situation at a glance.

"Hold hard a moment," he ca