In the very heart of the Marsh where lay the deepest, broadest pools of all, shutting in the unwary wanderer on every side, Helen saw a little girl lifting in her arms a small, heavy brother, much younger, but not much less than herself. On even ground she could scarcely carry him, but now the young heroine had a desperate attempt to make. The rain had begun, the last lingering sunbeam was gone: all their companions were already out of peril; the poor little sister was essaying to leap over the pool which intercepted her, with the great lumbering boy in her arms. “Dinna, Jeanie--dinna try’t,” cried another little girl, looking back; “just bide a wee while. I’ll rin and get Robbie Caryl--there’s nae fears.” But Jeanie had many fears, and the rain began to come heavily down, and Robbie Caryl’s cottage was a full quarter of a mile away; so she made the leap, her frightened heart beating loud. It was successful so far; the little blubbering brother was safely landed, but she herself plunged to the knee into the pool, and her frock was torn, and one of her clogs lost in the tenacious wet sand. Poor Jeanie could not wait to get it out, and every step of her progress must be made at the same peril. She sat down on the sharp grass beside her little brother, and looked at her torn wet frock, and cried bitterly, with visions of high tide, and the dreary darkness, and being drowned, alternating in her mind with terror for what her mother would say about the torn frock and the lost shoe. But Jeanie must rise and lift little Tammie, and try again; and as she looked wistfully over the dark Marsh, she saw some one taller and more agile than herself, springing step by step over the dangerous pools. “It’s only a woman,” said Jeanie to herself, sadly; but immediately the little heart rose and grew courageous: “It’s the mistress!” She had cured Helen. The cheek of the young schoolmistress of Fendie was glowing through the rain as if it never could be pale. Peter himself, the embryo fisherman, had never leaped those gleaming pools more bravely than Helen did. It was somewhat hard for an amusement to other than boyhood, but it made her eyes sparkle and her heart beat; she had never been blyther than she was now. He was a serious weight, that little blubbering Tammie, and was somewhat afraid of the honour of being lifted in the arms of the mistress. It awed him into silence; and Jeanie ventured to pause, to rescue her shoe. The mistress assured her that the pool was not so deep after all, and Jeanie forgot her fears.