her little sister's hand in hers. She did not know that this was partly the result of her self-denial in leaving her work to come with her. But it was, for it is wonderful how soon the smallest act of selfsacrifice generally brings its own reward.

They took the way down "the braes" and along the bank of the river. The channel was narrow at this part and the water deep, and Jenny warned Tooney not to go too near it, when they stopped to pluck the meadow-sweet growing near the bank.

After a little Jenny happened to cast her eyes on the other side of the river, and as she did so she gave an exclamation of delight. Scattered all over a small field there she saw a number of beautiful purple flowers of a kind she had never seen before.

A new flower was a wonderful treasure to Jenny, and she became quite excited when she saw them. "Look, Tooney, aren't they beautiful? What can they be?" she exclaimed.

Tooney looked as directed, and suggested that they were lady-fingers, as the flowers of the foxglove are sometimes called.

"Oh no, they grow far too low for lady-fingers, and they are far darker. Besides, foxglove never grows in meadow land. Oh, how I wish I could get to them!" she went on, her desire to possess some of the beautiful flowers growing stronger every moment she looked at them. To be so near and yet unable to reach them on account of the

river being between was, she thought, very provoking.

But after a minute she remembered that a little lower down there was a ladder thrown across the river, by which she might pass to the opposite bank.

"Stay here, Tooney, till I come back. I mean to have those flowers, but you wait for me here," she said to her little sister; and then she set off running to the place where she intended to cross.

If she had looked back she would have seen that, instead of obeying her, Tooney had caught the infection of her own excitement and was trotting after her as fast as her little legs would carry her, while Bob Kipplety, from one of his own fields, seeing them both running, wondered what was the matter, and came hobbling down the braes to ascertain.

But Jenny never looked behind her till she came to the ladder, and then she never looked before her. If she had she might have hesitated, for the river was so high that it reached almost up to the ladder. In her eagerness to reach the flowers, Jenny hardly observed the danger, and did not feel the slightest fear, although at another time she would not have attempted to cross by such an insecure bridge. Over it she went, on her hands and knees, heedless of the dark water beneath her, and little thinking that a few minutes later Tooney would be trying to cross it in the same manner.

When she reached the other side, she ran as quickly as she could to where the patches of purple were gleaming in the rays of the setting sun. She found that they were orchids of a species that she had sometimes seen in gardens, but never before growing wild, and never, anywhere, had seen them so large or richly coloured. Jenny was in great delight at the beautiful sight, and wished she could pluck all the flowers, and transplant all the roots to her own garden at home. She resolved to come back some other day with a trowel and basket, and dig up as many as she could carry. She made an attempt to root one out, then and there, with her fingers; but the bulbs were too deeply imbedded in the soil to be moved, and she only broke her nails for her pains, and brought up long bleached stalks, without any roots attached.

She then began hastily plucking the finest of the blossoms, and would soon have had a large nosegay if she had not been interrupted by what sounded like a shout of warning.

At first she did not regard it, not thinking that it was intended for her. But soon it was repeated, and a minute afterwards it was followed by another sound --a child's shrill scream, that made her drop the flowers and fly, rather than run, toward the river. One frightened glance told her that Tooney was not where she had left her; the next showed her white sun-bonnet floating on the water.