"Because then _you_ alone would have saved me," murmured Valeria, sweetly.
"If Miss Douglas had not grasped you as she did, we might all have been too late," replied Heathcote, looking at her in wonder.
"Ah, no; I did not slip farther. You would have been in time," said the belle of Morleville, with what she considered a telling glance. And she actually convinced herself that she had made an impression.
"I ought not to have done it, of course, Louisa," she said to her bosom-friend, in the privacy of her own room, after her return to Morleville; "but I really felt that he deserved at least _that_ reward for his great devotion to me, poor fellow!"
"And why couldn't you like him, after all, Valeria dear?" urged Louisa, deeply interested, and not a little envious.
"I could not--I could not," replied Valeria, slowly and virtuously, shaking her head. "He had not the principles I require in a man. But--I felt sorry for him."
Oh, ineffable Valerias! what would life be without you?
Dexter had been the one to offer his arm to Anne when she felt able to go down the hill. At the main-road crossing they found the Reverend Mr. Sloane faithfully sitting on a dusty bank, with the orchid in his hand, waiting for them. It seemed to Anne that a long and vague period of time had passed since they parted from him. But she was glad to get the orchid; she knew that no slight extraneous affair, such as the saving of a life, would excuse the absence of that flower. Rachel Bannert had chafed Heathcote's strained arm with her soft hands, and arranged a sling for it made of her sash. She accompanied him back to the picnic ground. It was worth while to have a strained arm.
Miss Vanhorn considered that it was all nonsense, and was inclined to reprove her niece. But she had the orchid; and when Dexter came up, and in a few strong words expressed his admiration for the young girl's courage, she changed her mind, and agreed with him, although regretting "the display."
"Girls like that Morle should be manacled," she said.
"And I, for one, congratulate myself that there was, as you call it, a display--a display of the finest resolution I have ever seen in a young girl," said Dexter, warmly. "Miss Douglas was not even sure that the little tree was firm; and of course she could not tell how long it would take us to come."