t this time, little maid, and with
your boots on too?"

"I fell in," whispered Patty, and closed her eyes again as the tiresome
faintness crept over her.

"It was my fault," sobbed Millie, thoroughly subdued and softened,
and slightly hysterical too. "I--I didn't mean to push her into the
water----"

"It was an accident," said Patty, coming back out of her dreaminess.
"I was stooping down--and overbalanced--that was all. I was tying up my
boot-lace." And as she insisted on this, and would say nothing more,
everyone decided that there was nothing more to say; and, as she had
received no real injury, and was soon out and about again, the matter was
gradually forgotten--by all, at least, but the two actors in what might
have been an awful tragedy.

Patty received no real injury, but it was a very white and tired little
Patty who called on Mona on the following Sunday to go with her to Sunday
School.

Mona, having a shrewd suspicion that Patty could have told much more if
she had chosen, was longing to ask questions, but Patty was not
encouraging.

"Did you think you were really going to die?" she asked.

"Yes," said Patty, simply.

"What did it feel like? Were you----"

"I can't tell you." Patty's voice was very grave. "Don't ask me, Mona.
It's--it's too solemn to talk about."

When they reached the school-yard gate, Millie Higgins came towards them.
"Then you're able to come, Patty! I'm so glad." There was real feeling
in Millie's words. Her voice was full of an enormous relief. Mona was
astonished. She herself did not look at Millie or speak to her. She had
not forgiven her for that afternoon's work, and she more than suspected
her of being the cause of Patty's accident.

As Millie did not move away, Mona strolled across with Patty still
clinging to her arm, to where a group of girls stood talking together.
Millie Higgins, with a rush of colour to her face, turned away and joined
another group, but the group apparently did not see her, for none of them
spoke to her, and Millie very soon moved away again to where two girls
stood together, but as she approached the two they hastily linked arms
and, turning their back on her, walked into the schoolroom. Mona noticed
both incidents, and, beginning to suspect something, kept both eyes and
ears open. Her suspicions were soon confirmed.

"I believe that all the girls are giving Millie the cold shoulder,"
she whispered at last in Patty's ear. "They