spair, Helen gave herself up for lost, assured
she was in the coils of the snake, and that its venom was penetrating
through her whole frame.

"I shall die," thought she, "and mother will never know how I came here
alone to gather strawberries, that she might eat and be well."

As she felt no sting, no pain, and the snake lay perfectly still, she
ventured to steal a glance at her feet, and saw that it was a piece of a
vine that she had caught in her flight, and which her fears had
converted into the embrace of an adder. Springing up with the velocity
of lightning, she darted along, regardless of the beauty of the stream,
in whose limpid waters she had thought to behold her crimson-stained
cheeks. She ran on, panting, glowing--the perspiration, hot as drops of
molten lead, streaming down her face, looking furtively back, every now
and then, to see if that gorgeous creature, with glittering coils and
burning eyes were not gliding at her heels. At length, blinded and dizzy
from the speed with which she had run, she fell against an opposing body
just at the entrance of the lane.

"Why, Helen, what is the matter?" exclaimed a well-known voice, and she
knew she was safe. It was the young doctor, who loved to walk on the
banks of that beautiful stream, when the shadows of the tall hickories
lengthened on the grass.

Helen was too breathless to speak, but he knew, by her clinging hold,
that she sought protection from some real or imaginary danger. While he
pitied her evident fright, he could not help smiling at her grotesque
appearance. The perspiration, dripping from her forehead, had made
channels through the crimson dye on her cheeks, and her chin, which had
been buried in the ground when she fell, was all covered with mud. Her
frock was soiled and torn, her bonnet twisted so that the strings hung
dangling over her shoulder. A more forlorn, wild-looking little figure,
can scarcely be imagined, and it is not strange that the young doctor
found it difficult to suppress a laugh.

"And so you left your strawberries behind," said he, after hearing the
history of her fright and flight. "It seems to me I would not have
treated the snake so daintily. Suppose we go back and cheat him of his
nice supper, after all."

"Oh! no--no--no," exclaimed Helen, emphatically. "I wouldn't go for all
the strawberries in the whole world."

"Not when they would do your sick mother good?" said he, gravely.

"But the snake!" cried she, with a