ing her right up
into his arms, saturated as her clothing was, he bore her to the bank
and clambered to where Lyddy was doing all she could to hold the restive
ponies.

"Whoa, Spot and Daybright!" commanded the young farmer, soothing the
ponies much quicker than he could his human burden. "Now, Miss, you're
all right----"

"All r-r-right!" gasped 'Phemie, her teeth chattering like castanets.
"I--I'm anything _but_ right!"

"Oh, 'Phemie! you might have been drowned," cried her anxious sister.

"And now I'm likely to be frozen stiff right here in this road. Mrs.
Lot wasn't a circumstance to me. She only turned to salt, while I am
be-be-coming a pillar of ice!"

But Lucas had set her firmly on her feet, and now he snatched up the old
overcoat which had so much amused 'Phemie, and wrapped it about her,
covering her from neck to heel.

"In you go--sit 'twixt your sister and me this time," panted the young
man. "We'll hustle home an' maw'll git you 'twixt blankets in a hurry."

"She'll get her death!" moaned Lyddy, holding the coat close about the wet
girl.

"Look out! We'll travel some now," exclaimed Lucas, leaping in, and having
seized the reins, he shook them over the backs of the ponies and shouted
to them.

The remainder of that ride up the mountain was merely a nightmare for the
girls. Lucas allowed the ponies to lose no time, despite the load they
drew. But haste was imperative.

A ducking in an icy mountain brook at this time of the year might easily
be fraught with serious consequences. Although it was drawing toward noon
and the sun was now shining, there was no great amount of warmth in the
air. Lucas must have felt the keen wind himself, for he was wet, too; but
he neither shivered nor complained.

Luckily they were well up the mountainside when the accident occurred. The
ponies flew around a bend where a grove of trees had shut off the view,
and there lay the Pritchett house and outbuildings, fresh in their coat
of whitewash.

"Maw and Sairy'll see to ye now," cried Lucas, as he neatly clipped the
gatepost with one hub and brought the lathered ponies to an abrupt stop in
the yard beside the porch.

"Hi, Maw!" he added, as a very stout woman appeared in the doorway--quite
filling the opening, in fact. "Hi, Maw! Here's Mis' Hammon's nieces--an'
one of 'em's been in Pounder's Brook!"

"For the land's sake!" gasped the farmer's wife, pulling a pair of
steel-bowed spectacles down from her brows tha