off your head, and your shoes--in Heaven's name, Maria! what HAVE
you done with your shoes?"

Maria had exhibited a slim stockinged foot from under her skirt.
It was scarcely three fingers broad, with an arch as patrician as
her nose. "Somewhere between here and the carriage," she answered;
"Dick can run back and find it, while he is looking for your
brooch, mamma. Dick's so obliging."

The robust voice of Dick thundered, but the wasted figure of Dick
feebly ploughed its way back, and returned with the missing buskin.

"I may as well carry them in my hand like the market girls at
Saumur, for we have got to wade soon," said Miss Maria, sinking her
own terrors in the delightful contemplation of the horror in her
parent's face, as she pointed to a shining film of water slowly
deepening in a narrow swale in the sands between them and the
cabin.

"It's the tide," said the elder gentleman. "If we intend to go on
we must hasten; permit me, my dear madam," and before she could
reply he had lifted the astounded matron in his arms, and made
gallantly for the ford. The gentle Maria cast an ominous eye on
her brother, who, with manifest reluctance, performed for her the
same office. But that acute young lady kept her eyes upon the
preceding figure of the elder gentleman, and seeing him suddenly
and mysteriously disappear to his armpits, unhesitatingly threw
herself from her brother's protecting arms,--an action which
instantly precipitated him into the water,--and paddled hastily to
the opposite bank, where she eventually assisted in pulling the