"Good heavens! what is all this about?" he cried, rushing forward to receive the disconsolate cargo, unloading one by one the whole group dank and dismal--Josephine's scared face swollen with tears, white and red in the wrong places; Leam's set like a mask, blanched, rigid, tragic; Fina's now flushed and angry, now pale and frightened, with a child's swift-varying emotions; and the garments of the last two clinging like cerements and dripping small pools on the gravel. "Learn pushed me into the river," said Fina, beginning to cry afresh, and holding on by Josephine, who now kissed and coaxed her, and said, "Fina, my darling, don't say such a wicked thing of poor Leam: it is so naughty, so very naughty," and then took to hugging her again, as the mood of the instant swayed her toward the child or the girl, but always full of womanly weakness and kindness to each, and only troubled that she had to make distinctions, as it were, between them. "What is it you say, Fina?" asked Mr. Dundas slowly--"Leam pushed you into the river?" "Yes," sobbed Fina. "I did not, papa. And I went in myself to save her," said Leam, holding her head very straight and high. Mr. Dundas looked at her keenly, sternly. "Well, no, Leam," he answered, with, as it seemed to her, marked coldness and in a strange voice: "with all your unpleasant temper I do not like to suppose you could be guilty of the crime of murder." The girl shuddered visibly. Her proud little head drooped, her fixed and fearless eyes sank shamed to the ground. "I have always taken care of Fina," she said in a humbled voice, as if it was a plea for pardon that she was putting forward. "You pushed me in, and you did it on purpose," repeated Fina; and Mr. Dundas was shocked at himself to find that he speculated for a moment on the amount of truth there might be in the child's statement. Cold, trembling, distressed, Leam turned away. Would that sin of hers always thus meet her face to face? Should she never be free from its shadow? Go where she would, it followed her, ineffaceable, irreparable--the shame of it never suffered to die out, its remorse never quenched, the sword always above her head, to fall she knew not when, but to fall some day: yes, that she did know. "But you must go up stairs now," said Josephine with a creditable effort after practicality: "we shall have you both seriously ill unless you get your clothes changed at once." Mr. Dundas looked at her kindly. "How wise and good you are!" he said with almost enthusiasm; and Josephine, her eyes humid with glad tears, her cheeks flushed with palpitating joy, sank in soul to him again, as so often before, and offered the petition of her humble love, which wanted only his royal signature to make an eternal bond. "I love little Fina," she said tremulously. It was as if she had said, "I love you."