A rope had been fastened to a tree standing near the head of the path leading up the embankment, and supplied the place of the broken rail. When Patty was ready, a discussion arose how she should be got up the steep. Putnam cut it short by taking her, blushing as a modest maiden should, in his arms, and climbing up with her, she assisting by clinging to the rope.
"You are something of a load," he said, puffing as they reached the top.
"I shall be as heavy as mother some day, I don't doubt," she replied demurely; "but it isn't grateful of you to speak of it, when I pulled you up by the rope."
"You are not the first lady who has pulled a man up by a rope," he replied, tucking her into the carriage with great tenderness; "but they generally do it by means of the hangman."
[CHAPTER VI.]
CHIT-CHAT.
Three carriages followed in succession the homeward road; the first contained Patty and Putnam; the second Clarence Toxteth and Miss Purdy; the third, Burleigh Blood and Flossy.