Mabel's Mistake

by Ann S. Stephens

The look of relief that came to the face of Ralph Harrington was like a flash of sunshine. A grateful smile lighted his eyes, but instead of resigning Lina to the stout arms held out by Ben Benson, he gathered her close to his bosom, saying in a proud voice,

"Why, Ben, I want no help to carry Lina."

Then he bore her down the hill, looking now and then upon her face so tenderly, that Ben, who was eyeing him all the way with sidelong glances, made a hideous face to himself, as if to capitulate with his dignity for wanting to smile at anything so childish.

"Sit down there," said Ben, pointing to the stern of his boat, "sit down there, Mister Ralph, and kinder ease her down to the seat; your face is hot as fire a carrying her. Now I'll fill my hat with water and give her a souse that'll bring the red to her mouth in a jiffy."

"No, no," said Ralph, arresting Ben as he stooped to fill his little glazed hat, "don't throw it, hold your cap here, Ben, and I'll sprinkle her face. How pale it is! How like a dear lifeless angel she looks?"

Ben stooped to the water, and Ralph trembling and flushed, bent over the pale beautiful face on his bosom, closer, closer, till his lips drew the blood back to hers, and her eyelids began to quiver like shadows on a white rose.

Ben had slowly risen from the water with the glazed hat dripping between his two great hands; but when he saw Ralph's position, the good fellow ducked downward again, and made a terrible splashing in the river, as he dipped the brimming hat a second time, while that grotesque suppression of a smile convulsed his hard features.

It was wonderful how long it took Ben to fill his hat this time. One would have thought him fishing for pearls in the depths of the river, he was so fastidious in finding the exact current best calculated to restore a young lady from faintness. When he did arise, everything about the young people was, to use his nautical expression, ship-shape and above-board. The color was stealing back to Lina's face, like blushes from the first flowering of apple blossoms, and a brightness stole from beneath her half-closed eyelids, that had something softer and deeper than mere life in it.

"It is not necessary, Ben; she is better, I think," said the young man, looking half-timidly into the boatman's face. "Don't you think she looks beauti——I mean, don't you think she looks better, a great deal better, Ben?"

Again, that grotesque expression seized upon Ben's features; and, setting down his hat, as if it had been a washbowl, he took Lina's straw hat from the bottom of the boat, where it had fallen, and began to shake out the ribbons with great energy.