CHAPTER II

BULLETS FOE DEFENSE


"Oh, Betty, Betty," cried Miss Moppet, as the pair gained the more
frequented road and cantered briskly on their homeward way, "what an
adventure we have had! Aunt Euphemia will no doubt bestow a sound rating
on me, for, alas!"--with a doleful glance downward--"see the draggled
condition of my habit."

"Never mind your habit, Moppet," said Betty. "Thank Heaven instead that
you are not lying stiff and cold at the bottom of the pond. You can
never know the agony I suffered when I saw you fall; I should have
plunged in after you in another second."

"Dearest Betty," said the child, looking lovingly at her, "I know you
can swim, but you never could have held me up as that stranger did. Oh!"
with sudden recollection, "we did not ask his name! Did you forget?"

"No," said Betty, "but when I told him ours and he did not give his name
in return, I thought perhaps he did not care to be known, and of course
forbore to press him."

"How handsome he was," said Moppet; "did you see his hair? And how
tightly it curled, wet as it was? And his eyes--surely you noted his
eyes, Betty?"

"Yes," replied Betty, blushing with remembrance of the parting glance
the hazel eyes had bestowed upon her; "he is a personable fellow