entirely instinctive on my part; and I believe," she added, musingly,
looking with a child's directness into his eyes, "that one's instincts are
usually right; don't you?"

He turned away to hide the feeling of intense pleasure caused by her words,
but only said, in a low voice, "I hope I may never fail you, Amy, when you
turn to me for help." Then he added, quickly, as if hastening away from
delicate ground: "While those large black-snakes are not poisonous, they
are ugly customers sometimes. I have read of an instance in which a boy put
his hand into the hole of a tree where there had been a bluebird's nest,
and touched the cold scales of one of these snakes. The boy took to his
heels, with the snake after him, and it is hard to say what would have
happened had not a man plowing near come to the rescue with a heavy
ox-whip. What I should fear most in your case would be a nervous shock had
the snake even approached you, for you looked as if you had inherited from
Mother Eve an unusual degree of hate for the reptile."

The report of the gun had attracted Alf and others to the scene. Amy, with
a look of smiling confidence, said: "Perhaps you have rescued me as well as
the birds. I can't believe, though, that such a looking creature could have
tempted Eve to either good or evil;" and she entered the house, leaving him
in almost a friendly mood toward the cause of the cat-bird's woe.

Alf exulted over the slain destroyer, and even Johnnie felt no compunction
at the violent termination of its life. The former, with much sportsmanlike
importance, measured it, and at the dinner-table announced its length to be
a little over four feet.

"By the way," said Webb, "your adventure, Amy, reminds me of one of the
finest descriptions I ever read;" and jumping up, he obtained from the