interested than the little learner herself. He went to church on Sunday,
and was probably the most attentive listener the rather prosy old pastor
had.

Of course he bathed--everybody did. A stout rope was stretched from a
post on the shore to a buoy in deep water where it was anchored, and
back and forth on this rope capered every day twenty or thirty hideously
dressed but very happy people, among whom might always be seen Mr.
Putchett with a child on his shoulder.

One day the waves seemed to viciously break near the shore, and the
bathers all followed the rope out to where there were swells instead of
breakers. Mr. Putchett was there, of course, with little Alice. He
seemed perfectly enamored of the water, and delighted in venturing as
far to the sea as the rope would allow, and there ride on the swells,
and go through all other ridiculously happy antics peculiar to
ocean-lovers who cannot swim.

Suddenly Mr. Putchett's hand seemed to receive a shock, and he felt
himself sinking lower than usual, while above the noise of the surf and
the confusion of voices he heard some one roar:

"The rope has broken--scramble ashore!"

[Illustration: HE THREW UP HIS HAND AS A SIGNAL THAT THE LINE SHOULD BE
DRAWN IN.]

The startled man pulled frantically at the piece of rope in his hand,
but found to his horror that it offered no assistance; it was evident
that the break was between him and the shore. He kicked and paddled
rapidly, but seemed to make no headway, and while Alice, realizing the
danger, commenced to cry piteously, Mr. Putchett plainly saw on the
shore the child's mother in an apparent frenzy of excitement and terror.

The few men present--mostly boarding-house keepers and also ex-sailors
and fishermen--hastened with a piece of the broken rope to drag down a
fishing-boat which lay on the sand beyond reach of the tide. Meanwhile a
boy found a fishing-line, to the end of which a stone was fastened and
thrown toward the imperiled couple.

Mr. Putchett snatched at the line and caught it, and in an instant half
a dozen women pulled upon it, only to have it break almost inside Mr.
Putchett's hands. Again it was thrown, and again the frightened broker
caught it. This time he wound it about Alice's arm, put the end into her
hand, kissed her forehead, said, "Good-by, little angel, God bless you,"
and threw up his hand as a signal that the line should be drawn in. In
less than a minute little Alice was in her mother's ar