g to steal my lovely
wife."

"I'm the lovely wife," interrupted Carol complacently.

"But Connie does not know about it. She is so religious she won't be
any of the villain parts. When we want her to be anything real
low-down, we have to do it on the sly. She would no more consent to a
band of dark-browed gypsies than she would----"

Connie came around the corner of the parsonage, out the back walk
beneath the maple. Then she gave a gleeful scream. Right before her
lay a beautiful heavy rope. Connie had been yearning for a good rope
to make a swing. Here it lay, at her very feet, plainly a gift of the
gods. She did not wait to see where the other end of the rope was.
She just grabbed what she saw before her, and started violently back
around the house with it yelling, "Prudence! Look at my rope!"

Prudence rushed around the parsonage. The twins shrieked wildly, as
there was a terrific tug and heave of the limb beside them, and then--a
crashing of branches and leaves. Jerry was gone!

It did look horrible, from above as well as below. But Jerry, when he
felt the first light twinge as Connie lifted the rope, foresaw what was
coming and was ready for it. As he went down, he grabbed a firm hold
on the branch on which he had stood, then he dropped to the next, and
held again. On the lowest limb he really clung for fifteen seconds,
and took in his bearings. Connie had dropped the rope when the twins
screamed, so he had nothing more to fear from her. He saw Prudence,
white, with wild eyes, both arms stretched out toward him.

"O. K., Prue," he called, and then he dropped. He landed on his feet,
a little jolted, but none the worse for his fall.

He ran at once to Prudence. "I'm all right," he cried, really alarmed
by the white horror in her face. "Prudence! Prudence!" Then her arms
dropped, and with a brave but feeble smile, she swayed a little. Jerry
took her in his arms. "Sweetheart!" he whispered. "Little sweetheart!
Do--do you love me so much, my dearest?"

Prudence raised her hands to his face, and looked intensely into his
eyes, all the sweet loving soul of her shining in her own. And Jerry
kissed her.

The twins scrambled down from the maple, speechless and cold with
terror,--and saw Prudence and Jerry! Then they saw Connie, staring at
them with interest and amusement.

"I think we'd better go to bed, all three of us," declared Lark
sturdily. And they set off heroically around the h