"Are you at all acquainted with the river?" he asked, gently, without a trace of resentment for the way she had spoken to him a moment before.
"No!" confessed Barbara, in a very small voice, deprecatingly.
"A few miles farther down there is a stretch of very bad water," said the boy. "Clever canoeist as you are, you would find it hard enough work going through in broad daylight. At night you would just be dashed to pieces in a minute."
"Oh, what shall I do?" cried Barbara, the perils of her adventure just beginning to touch her imagination.
"Let me take you to my grandmother's," he pleaded. "And we will paddle back to Second Westings to-morrow."
Barbara burst into a storm of tears.
"Never! never! never!" she sobbed. "I'll die in the rapids before I'll ever go back to Aunt Hitty! Oh, why did I like you? Why did I trust you? Oh, I don't know what to do!"
The boy's heart came into his throat and ached at the sight of her trouble. He longed desperately to help her. He had a wild impulse to swear that he would follow her and protect her, wherever she wanted to go, however impossible her undertaking. Instead of that, however, he kept silence and paddled forward resolutely for two or three minutes, while Barbara, her face buried in her hands, shook with sobs. At last he ran the canoe into a shadowy cove, where lily leaves floated on the unruffled water. Then he laid down his paddle.
"Tell me all about it, won't you, please?" he petitioned. "I do want so much to help you. And perhaps I can. And you shall not be sorry for trusting me!"
How very comforting his voice was! So tender, and kind, and with a faithful ring in its tenderness. Barbara suffered it to comfort her. Surely he would understand, if old Debby could! In a few moments she lifted her wet little face, flashed a smile at him through her tears, and said: