For half a minute Nancy Nelson had been inactive. Her quick mind had suggested the way the boy in the millrace might be saved; but the chauffeur of the automobile was the instrument by which the helpless victim’s course down the current had been retarded.

But now it looked as though he would be lost, after all. Below the race the water was most boisterous and there were many jagged rocks. If he was drawn through the race he would be seriously injured on the rocks, if not drowned.

The bright-minded girl saw all this in those few seconds. She scrambled down the steep bank, clutching at the chauffeur’s ankle as she went.

“You’ll have to hold both of us for a minute!” she cried.

“Go ahead! I understand!” he returned, swaying his body back as he clung to the stout cord, and digging his heels into the bank.

Nancy hung over the swift current and stretched her right hand down to the boy.

“Get hold! Grab me!” she called, gaspingly.

“I I’ll pull you in,” he replied, in a strangled tone.

“Do what I tell you!” she cried, angrily.

She flung herself farther out just as his left arm was unhooked from the inflated tire. She seized his wrist; he had presence of mind enough to seize hers in return.

“Let go of the tire!” she sang out to the chauffeur, and he obeyed.

He was a strong young man. As the tire went whirling down the stream he drew them both up the bank the girl first, clinging with desperation to the wrist of the half-drowned boy.

Wet, spattered, with mud, and exhausted, Nancy got a footing on firm ground once more. The chauffeur grabbed at the boy’s other arm, and he was quickly lying on the bank, too.

“It it almost got me!” gasped the boy.

His face was streaked with mud, and he was altogether a sorry spectacle. But through it all he had clung to the bunch of water-lilies.

“Here! Take ’em!” he panted, thrusting the blooms into Nancy’s hand. “You you’re all right! Say! wha-what’s your name

Nancy heard the other girls coming down the path now. The danger was over and she suddenly realized that she must look a perfect fright.

“N-never mind! Thanks!” she blurted out, and turning sharply, dashed into the cover of the thicket and was almost instantly out of sight out of sound, as well.

But she was so excited that she did not think again how she looked until she appeared before Miss Trigg.

The short-sighted teacher looked up at her stared, evidently without identifying her charge for the moment and then gave voice.

“Nancy! Nancy Nelson! Whatever have you been doing to yourself?”

“I I

Nancy had already heard the motor get under way. She knew that the boy and his friends were now out of hearing, or reach.

“Aren’t these lilies pretty?” she asked, holding out the flowers as a peace-offering to Miss Trigg.

“What?” screamed the teacher, getting up nimbly, and backing away from the mud-bedaubed figure of the girl. “Your feet are wet! Did did you dare get into such a mess, just to get those those weeds?”

Nancy nodded. It was true. Her bedrabblement had been the forerunner of the gift of flowers from the boy.

“Well! of all things!” gasped Miss Trigg.

“I I believe you’ve taken leave of your senses. Why why, whatever will people think of you, going home? We we can’t ride in the car. They wouldn’t let you get on. And I’d be ashamed to be seen with you.”

“Oh! I’m sorry, Miss Trigg,” murmured Nancy.

“Being sorry won’t take the mud off that dress or bring a new pair of stockings or clean those boots. We’ve got to have a cab a closed cab. I wouldn’t go home with you in anything else.”

“I I’ll go home alone, Miss Trigg,” said the contrite girl.

“No! While Miss Prentice is away you shall never again be out of my sight in waking hours no, Miss! And for a bunch of weeds!”

“Oh Miss Trigg! they are so-o pretty

“Don’t you say another word!” commanded the teacher. “And you stand right here until I can signal a cab on the drive below. There, there’s one now!”

The teacher burst through the bushes and waved madly to a taxi rolling slowly along the macadam below the hill. The driver saw her and stopped.

“Come!” spoke Miss Trigg. “Here! give me those those things.”

She snatched the lilies from Nancy’s hand and flung them in the path. The girl looked back at them longingly; but she thought it best to trifle with the teacher no further.

So she followed slowly the gaunt, angry woman down the steep path, and only the memory of the boy’s gift remained with her through the rest of the days of that last vacation at Higbee School.

Nancy was in disgrace with Miss Trigg, and was very lonely. She wondered who the boy was and where he lived and who the girls were with him and if he had suffered any bad result from his adventure.

Above all, she wondered if she should ever see him again.

But that was not likely. Miss Prentice came home in a week, and in another week the school would open.

Mr. Gordon had sent the ticket for Nancy’s fare to Clintondale. Her modest trunk was packed. Miss Prentice bade her a perfunctory good-bye. It was a cold farewell, indeed, to the only home the girl could remember and in which she had lived for at least three-quarters of her life.

But as the cab which was to take her to the railway station was about to start, Miss Trigg hurried out. She had scarcely recovered from the shock of Nancy’s adventure at the millpond; but after all there was a spark of human feeling deep down in the teacher’s heart.

“I I hope youll do well, Nancy, she stammered. Do do keep up well in your studies and be a credit to us. And for mercy’s sake don’t venture into a pond again after nasty weeds. It’s not not ladylike.”

Nancy thought she was going to kiss her. But it had been a long time since Miss Trigg had kissed anybody, and it is doubtful if she really knew how. So she thought better of it, shook hands with Nancy in a mannish way, turned abruptly, and stalked back into the house.

The taxi rolled away, and Nancy winked back the tears. It was not hard. After all, the orphan girl was leaving nothing behind that she really loved.