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 drive old Bill clear back home and put him in the pen."

But when the little girl gazed down the vast length of Jefferson Avenue and considered its huge open spaces that by and by lost themselves in a distance in which horses and wagons and carriages seemed all scrambled up together, a fearsomeness possessed her small soul, and her blue eyes, full of wistful appeal, wavered a moment, then fixed themselves upon the face of the boy.

"I—I'm afraid to go home, I guess," she confessed, as if disappointed in herself. "I've had such a scare, you know. I probably must be nervous."

As if suddenly bereft and alone in the world, she thrust out one of the milk-white hands and took hold of George's wrist—a grasp that was timid and yet confiding—a touch that was altogether different from that sturdy clasp of gratitude with which she had taken his hand before.

Inwardly, in the boy soul of him, George Judson jumped as if a hot iron had been laid upon him, but in his flesh he did not move nor start. He only felt that warm, soft touch like velvet, and it melted every purpose in his breast to one purpose—the purpose to guard the little queen from harm—to do more, to be henceforth and forever in all things her obedient slave.

"I'll go home with you!" he announced