endeavoring to climb the pickets, and falling backward with each
attempt. Suddenly she started to her feet, as if the rosy flushes of the
dawn had crimsoned her from forehead to shoulders; then she stood, white
as the wall, with her hands clasped upon her bosom; then, with a single
bound, she reached the door, and, with flying braids and fluttering
skirt, sprang down the stairs, and out to the garden walk. When within a
few feet of the fence, she uttered a cry, the first she had given,--the
cry of a mother over her stricken babe, of a tigress over her mangled
cub; and in another moment she had leaped the fence, and knelt beside
Ridgeway, with his fainting head upon her breast.

"My boy, my poor, poor boy! who has done this?"

Who, indeed? His clothes were covered with dust; his waistcoat was torn
open; and his handkerchief, wet with the blood it could not stanch, fell
from a cruel stab beneath his shoulder.

"Ridgeway, my poor boy! tell me what has happened."

Ridgeway slowly opened his heavy blue-veined lids, and gazed upon her.
Presently a gleam of mischief came into his dark eyes, a smile stole
over his lips as he whispered slowly,--

"It--was--your kiss--did it, Jenny dear. I had forgotten--how
high-priced the article was here. Never mind, Jenny!"--he feebly raised
her hand to his white lips,--"it was--worth it," and fainted away.

Jenny started to her feet, and looked wildly around her. Then, with a
sudden resolution, she stooped over the insensible man, and with one
strong effort lifted him in her arms as if he had been a child. When her