s and clings passionately
to her. The girl, who is not Jane, covers her with a defiant impulse of
protection, and confronts the intruder with a brave, proud face of
gypsy brilliance, warm, subtile, flushing, spirited, as if she
questioned his right to so much as look at the child.

"Cecil, answer me! How came you here?" The tone of authority is
deepened by the horrible fear speeding through his veins of what might
have happened.

"You shall not scold her!" She looks like some wild, shy animal
protecting its young, as she waves him away imperiously with her little
hand. "How could she know that the treacherous top of the cliff would
give way? She was a good, obedient child to do just what I told her,
and it saved her. See how her pretty hands are all scratched, and her
arm is bleeding."

He kneels at the feet of his child's brave savior, and clasps his arms
around Cecil. "My darling," and there is almost a sob in his voice, "my
little darling, do not be afraid. Look at papa. He is so glad to find
you safe."

"Is she your child,--your little girl?" And the other peers into his
face with incredulous curiosity.

Cecil answers by throwing herself into his arms.

"She is my one treasure in this world," Floyd Grandon exclaims with
deep fervor.

He holds her very tight. She is sobbing hysterically now, but he kisses
her with such passionate tenderness, that though her heart still beats
with terror, she is not afraid of his anger.

The young girl stands in wondering amaze, her velvety brown eyes
lustrous with emotion. Lithe, graceful, with a supple strength in every
rounded limb, in the slightly compressed red lips, the broad, dimpled
chin, and the straight, resolute brows. The quaint gray costume,
nun-like in its plainness, cannot make a nun of her.

"You have saved my child!" and there is a great tremble in his voice.
"I do not know how to thank you. I never can."

The statue moves a little, and the red lips swell, quiver, and yet she
does not speak.

"I saw you from the cliff. I hardly know how you had the self-command,
the forethought to do it."

"You will not scold her!" she entreats.

"My darling, no. For your sake, not a word shall be said."

"But I was naughty!" cries Cecil, in an agony of penitence. "I ran away
from Jane."

Grandon sits down on the stump of a tree, and takes Cecil on his lap.
Her little hands are scratched and soiled by the gravel, and her arm
has quite a wound.

"Oh!" the young g