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226 "Ralfy," however, was equal to saving his own life this time. The water was only up to his waist, and he had already picked himself up and was wading ashore.

"I—I am all right!" he said looking up at his anxious friends with a reassuring smile. "I—I am used to it, you know!"

As Clem assisted him up the bank, the thought came into Cyn's head, why would it not be a good idea to push Nat—accidentally—into the river, so Clem might rescue her, and thus bring about that much to be desired crisis? But remembering that water would run the colors of her dress, and farther, how dreadfully unbecoming it was to be wet—a fact fully demonstrated by the present appearance of Quimby—Cyn rejected the idea as not exactly feasible.

They left Quimby drying on a sunny bank, with Celeste as guardian angel, love, and the remains of the repast to cheer her, and the consciousness that his clothes were shrinking on him as they dried, to divert him, and wandered off through the woods, and over the hills, gathering on the way so many flowers and green things, that Cyn declared they looked like Birnam Wood coming to Dunsinane.

At first they were all together, then straggled apart; Mrs. Simonson being the first dereliction, as