the grass.”

“Little you know about it,” retorted Mary, rather crossly it seemed to Jupp. “Why, the river runs round just below the coppice; and if Master Teddy runs on and can’t stop himself, he’ll fall into it—there!”

“My stars and stripes!” ejaculated Jupp starting up in alarm. “I’ll go after him at once.”

“You’d better,” said Mary as he set off running down the hill after Teddy, singing out loudly for him to stop in a sort of reef-topsails-in-a-heavy-squall voice that you could have heard more than a cable’s length ahead!

The momentum Teddy had gained, however, from the descent of the glade prevented him from arresting his rapid footsteps, although he heard Jupp’s voice, the slope inclining the more abruptly towards the bottom of the hill. Besides, Puck in pursuit of the rabbits was right in front of him, and the dog, unable or unwilling to stop, bounded on into the mass of rushes, now quite close, that filled the lower part of the valley, and disappeared from Teddy’s sight.

The next moment there was a wild yelp from Puck as he gripped the rabbit, and both tumbled over the bank of the river into the water, which was previously concealed from view; the dog’s bark being echoed immediately afterwards by a cry of alarm from Teddy and a heavy plunge, as he, too, fell into the swiftly-flowing stream, and was borne out from the bank by the rapid current away towards the mill-dam below!