ntly shown. "But won't the lightning come to you now?" asked a
timid voice.

"No," said Sarah, promptly, "'cause I ain't afraid! Look!"

A frightened protest from the children here ensued, but the next
instant she appeared at the entrance of the grotto and ran down the
rocks towards the sea. Skipping from bowlder to bowlder she reached
the furthest projection of the ledge, now partly submerged by the
rising surf, and then turned half triumphantly, half defiantly, towards
the grotto. The weird phosphorescence of the storm lit up the resolute
little figure standing there, gorgeously bedecked with the chains,
rings, and shiny trinkets of her companions. With a tiny hand raised
in mock defiance of the elements, she seemed to lean confidingly
against the panting breast of the gale, with fluttering skirt and
flying tresses. Then the vault behind her cracked with three jagged
burning fissures, a weird flame leaped upon the sand, there was a cry
of terror from the grotto, echoed by a scream of nurses on the cliff, a
deluge of rain, a terrific onset from the gale--and--Sarah Walker was
gone? Nothing of the kind! When I reached the ledge, after a severe
struggle with the storm, I found Sarah on the leeward side, drenched
but delighted. I held her tightly, while we waited for a lull to
regain the cliff, and took advantage of the sympathetic situation.

"But you know you WERE frightened, Sarah," I whispered; "you thought of
what happened to poor Kribbles."

"Do you know who Kribbles was?" she asked confidentially.

"No."

"Well," she whispered, "I made Kribbles up. And the hidgeous storm and
thunderbolt--and the burning! All out of my own head."

The only immediate effect of this escapade was apparently to
precipitate and bring into notoriety the growing affection of an
obscure lover of Sarah Walker's, hitherto unsuspected. He was a mild
inoffensive boy of twelve, known as "Warts," solely from an inordinate
exhibition of these youthful excrescences. On the day of Sarah
Walker's adventure his passion culminated in a sudden and illogical
attack upon Sarah's nurse and parents while they were bewailing her
conduct, and in assaulting them with his feet and hands. Whether he
associated them in some vague way with the cause of her momentary
peril, or whether he only wished to impress her with the touching
flattery of a general imitation of her style, I cannot say. For his
lovemaking was peculiar. A day or two afterw