strangely at variance with the embarrassed, almost timid movements of
her hands and feet. Short locks of straight black hair whipped across
her face, her skirts, blown tightly back against her knees, bellied in
the wind, while her wide-brimmed hat caught the full force of the
blast, like a veritable top-sail.

By the time she had taken three tacks to cross the common, and was
ready to come about at the corner, there was a balloon jibe, that sent
the sails all flapping against the mast, and left her in such a flurry
of indignation, that she failed to see a string that stretched its
insidious length, two inches above the pavement, from fence to curb.

After her fall, instead of expiring of apoplexy, as might have been
expected from her countenance, Myrtella picked herself up from the
pavement and, peeping through a crack in the fence, smiled. It was an
expression so unfamiliar to her features that they scarcely knew how
to manage it.

"I see you, Chick!" she said in a voice that strove to be gentle; "why
don't you come on out here and speak to me?"

Chick and Skeeter, recognized a significant bulge to the string bag
which she carried, scrambled forth, the former skilfully evading her
outstretched arm of welcome.

"He says," interposed the ever-ready Skeeter, as his companion made
queer noises in his throat, "that he never knowed it was you. He never
went to trip you up. Honest to goodness! You ain't mad, are you?"

"No, I ain't mad." Myrtella still smiled as she brushed the dust from