Her face was toward him, as she lay upon her side. Her head was supported on the lap of the old man. Her long hair hung dishevelled, of a more glossy black now when filled with water. Her eyes were shut, and the dark fringes of their lids lay like a pencil-streak across the pale, prominent orbs which they served to bind together. The glow of indignant pride with which she was wont to receive his approaches had all disappeared in the mortal struggle for life through which she had lately gone; and pure, as seemingly free from every passion, her pale beauties appeared to his doating eye the very perfection of human loveliness. Her breast now heaved convulsively--deep sighs poured their way through her parted lips. Her eyes alternately opened upon but shut against the light, and, finally, the exertions of the old man were rewarded as the golden gleam of expression began to relight and re-illumine those features which seemed never to be without it. She recovered her consciousness, started up, made an effort to rise, but, reeling with inability, sunk down again into the paternal grasp of the old man. “Mr. Calvert!” she murmured. “You are safe, my daughter,” said the old man. “But how did it happen?--where am I?” “By the lake.” “Ah! I remember. I was drowning. I felt it all--the choking--the struggle--the water in my ears and eyes! It was a dreadful feeling. How did I come here? Who saved me?” “Ned Hinkley brought you to land, but he was helped by his cousin William, who assisted the stranger.” “The stranger? ah! yes, I remember: but where is he?” She looked around wildly and anxiously, and beholding William Hinkley at a little distance, busy with the still unconscious form of Stevens, a quick, fearful shudder passed over her frame. She almost crouched into the old man's arms as she asked, in husky accents-- “He is not dead--he lives?” “I hope so. He breathes.” She waited for no more, but, starting to her feet, she staggered to the spot where Stevens lay. The old man would have prevented her. “You are feeble; you will do yourself harm. Better, if you are able to walk, hurry homeward with me, when you can change your clothes.” “Would you have me ungrateful?” she exclaimed; “shall I neglect him when he risked his life for me?” There was a consciousness in her mind that it was not all gratitude which moved her, for the deathly paleness of her cheek was now succeeded by a warm blush which denoted a yet stronger and warmer emotion. The keen eyes of William Hinkley understood the meaning of this significant but unsyllabling mode of utterance, and his eyes spoke the reproach to hers which his lips left unsaid:-- “Ah! did I not risk my life too, to prevent--to save? When would she feel such an interest in me? when would she look thus were my life at stake?”