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 constantly exposed, but not to the concealment of the color that came and went according to her mood, the well-arched eyebrows darker than her hair, the straight nose and well rounded, but not too prominent chin; these made up a picture that seemed to need just such an occasion to flash their full significance upon the beholder, and there she stood when John Bishop and Robert Pearson, leading the little group that we have seen at the shop, came suddenly into view, directly across the stream.

Ruth recognized them at a glance and turned suddenly to go home, or at least to be out of sight, but she was not sufficiently guarded in her movements. She had been standing on apparently firm ground and had paid no heed to its constant trembling nor noticed its gradual yielding to her weight. Her more violent motion now caused the earth, which was deeply undermined, to suddenly give way. She was not quick enough to leap from where she stood to the fast ground, and in an instant was struggling in the rapid water and borne by the current into