dies.' I am myself, Augusta
Ashley, and accountable to nobody but myself if I choose to go down
the well every day for pure love of it."

She walked off in her wet dress with her muddy cat. Gussie Ashley was
the only girl I ever saw who could be dignified under such
circumstances.

I was in a very bad humour with myself as I went off to see about
having the well cleaned out. I had offended Gussie and I knew she
would not be easily appeased. Nor was she. For a week she kept me
politely, studiously, at a distance, in spite of my most humble
advances. Rev. Carroll was a frequent caller, ostensibly to make
arrangements about a Sunday school they were organizing in a poor part
of the community. Gussie and he held long conversations on this
enthralling subject. Then Gussie went on another visit to her friend,
and when she came back so did Rev. Carroll.

One calm, hazy afternoon I was coming slowly up from the mills.
Happening to glance at the kitchen roof, I gasped. It was on fire in
one place. Evidently the dry shingles had caught fire from a spark.
There was not a soul about save Gussie, Aunt Lucy, and myself. I
dashed wildly into the kitchen, where Gussie was peeling apples.

"The house is on fire," I exclaimed. Gussie dropped her knife and
turned pale.

"Don't wake Mother," was all she said, as she snatched a bucket of
water from the table. The ladder was still lying by the well. In a
second I had raised it to the roof and, while Gussie went up it like a
squirrel and dashed the water on the flames, I had two more buckets
ready for her.

Fortunately the fire had made little headway, though a few minutes
more would have given it a dangerous start. The flames hissed and died
out as Gussie threw on the water, and in a few seconds only a small
black hole in the shingles remained. Gussie slid down the ladder. She
trembled in every limb, but she put out her wet hand to me with a
faint, triumphant smile. We shook hands across the ladder with a
cordiality never before expressed.

For the next week, in spite of Rev. Carroll, I was happy when I
thought of Gussie and miserable when I thought of Nellie. I held
myself in some way bound to her and--was she not my ideal?
Undoubtedly!

One day I got a letter from my sister. It was long and newsy, and the
eighth page was most interesting.

"If you don't come home and look after Nellie," wrote Kate, "you'll
soon not have her to look after. You remember that old lover of hers,