and drown
me almost to death, or I'd have died!"

"I wonder!"

"Yes, 'twas Johnny Eastman; but his mamma gave me a beautiful little
tea-set, with _golder_ rims than the one that was burnt up; and Johnny
and Percy both felt dreadfully."

"Wanted the tea-set themselves--did they?"

"O, no; _they_ never play tea. That isn't why they feel dreadfully; it's
because, if they ever frighten me again, the Mayor'll have them put in
the _penitential_, and they know it."

"They were mean fellows; that's a fact," said Horace, with genuine
indignation. "I used to be full of mischief when I was small; but I
never frightened a little girl in my life; and no boy would do it that
thinks anything of himself."

Dotty looked up admiringly at the youth of twelve years, liking him all
the better for his chivalry, as any of you little girls would have done.

"Boy-cousins are not always alike," said she, as if the idea was quite
new; "some are good, and some are naugh--"

The word was cut in two by a scream. A large and very handsome snake was
gliding gracefully across her path. The like of it for size and
brilliancy, she had never seen before.

"O, how boo-ful!" cried Katie, darting after it. Horace held her back.
Dotty trembled violently.

"Kill it," she screamed; "throw stones at it; take me away! take me
away!"

"Poh, Dotty; nothing but an innocent snake; he's more afraid of you than
you are of him."

"You told him take you away two times," exclaimed Katie, "and he didn't,
and he didn't."

"I never knew you had such awful things out West," said Dotty
shuddering. "And I don't think _now_ there's _any_ difference in
boy-cousins! They never take you away, nor do anything you ask 'em
to--so there!"

"Why, Dotty, he was hurrying as fast as he could to get out of our
sight; there was no need of taking you away."

"She needn't be 'fraid," observed Flyaway, soothingly; "if I had a
sidders, I could ha' cutted him in two."

By this time the rest of the party had arrived. Grace and Cassy walked
together very confidentially under the same umbrella which had sheltered
them years ago--a black one marked with white paint, "Stolen from H.S.
Clifford." "Bold thieves" Horace called them; but they deigned no notice
of his remark.

"I'll get an answer," murmured Horace, repeating aloud,--

"'Hey for the apple and ho for the pear,
But give me the girl with the red hair.'"

At this Grace turned around sharply, and shook her ba