to several other children, and was correspondingly delighted when they said, in substance, that shells were not so attractive as once they were.

Mr. Putchett's researches in conchology were not particularly successful, for while he manfully moved about in the uncomfortable and ungraceful position peculiar to shell-seekers, he looked rather at the healthy, honest, eager little face near him than at the beach itself.

Suddenly, however, Mr. Putchett's opinion of shells underwent a radical change, for the child, straightening herself and taking something from her pocket, exclaimed:

"Oh, dear, somebody's picked up all the pretty ones. I thought, may be, there mightn't be any here, so I brought you one; just see what pretty pink and yellow spots there are on it."

Mr. Putchett looked, and there came into his face the first flush of color that had been there--except in anger--for years. He had occasionally received presents from business acquaintances, but he had correctly looked at them as having been forwarded as investments, so they awakened feelings of suspicion rather than of pleasure.

But at little Alice's shell he looked long and earnestly, and when he put it into his pocket he looked for two or three moments far away, and yet at nothing in particular.

"Do you have a nice boarding-house?" asked Alice, as they sauntered along the beach, stopping occasionally to pick up pebbles and to dig wells.

"Not very," said Mr. Putchett, the sanded barroom and his own rather dismal chamber coming to his mind.

"You ought to board where we do," said Alice, enthusiastically. "We have _heaps_ of fun. Have you got a barn?"

Mr. Putchett confessed that he did not know.

"Oh, we've got a splendid one!" exclaimed the child. "There's stalls, and a granary, and a carriage-house and _two_ lofts in it. We put out hay to the horses, and they eat it right out of our hands--aren't afraid a bit. Then we get into the granary, and bury ourselves all up in the oats, so only our heads stick out. The lofts are just _lovely_: one's full of hay and the other's full of wheat, and we chew the wheat, and make gum of it. The hay-stalks are real nice and sweet to chew, too.

They only cut the hay last week, and we all rode in on the wagon--one, two, three, four--seven of us. Then we've got two croquet sets, and the boys make us whistles and squalks."

"Squalks?" interrogated the broker.

"Yes; they're split quills, and you blow in them. They don't make very pretty music, but it's ever so funny. We've got two big swings and a hammock, too."

"Is the house very full?" asked Mr. Putchett.

"Not so very," replied the child. "If you come there to board, I'll make Frank teach you how to make whistles."

That afternoon Mr. Putchett took the train for New York, from which city he returned the next morning with quite a well-filled trunk. It was afterward stated by a person who had closely observed the capitalist's movements during his trip, that he had gone into a first-class clothier's and demanded suits of the best material and latest cut, regardless of cost, and that he had pursued the same singular coarse at a gent's furnishing store, and a fashionable jeweler's.

Certain it is that on the morning of Mr. Putchett's return a gentleman very well dressed, though seemingly ill at ease in his clothing, called at Mrs. Brown's boarding-house, and engaged a room, and that the younger ladies pronounced him very stylish and the older ones thought him very odd. But as he never intruded, spoke only when spoken to, and devoted himself earnestly and entirely to the task of amusing the children, the boarders all admitted that he was very good-hearted.

Among Alice's numerous confidences, during her second stroll with Mr.

Putchett, was information as to the date of her seventh birthday, now very near at hand. When the day arrived, her adorer arose unusually early, and spent an impatient hour or two awaiting Alice's appearance.

As she bade him good-morning, he threw about her neck a chain, to which was attached an exquisite little watch; then, while the delighted child was astonishing her parents and the other boarders, Mr. Putchett betook himself to the barn in a state of abject sheepishness. He did not appear again until summoned by the breakfast-bell, and even then he sat with a very red face, and with eyes directed at his plate only. The child's mother remonstrated against so much money being squandered on a child, and attempted to return the watch, but he seemed so distressed at the idea that the lady dropped the subject.

For a fortnight, Mr. Putchett remained at the boarding-house, and grew daily in the estimation of every one. From being thought queer and strange, he gradually gained the reputation of being the best-hearted, most guileless, most considerate man alive. He was the faithful squire of all the ladies, both young and old, and was adored by all the children. His conversational powers--except on matters of business--were not great, but his very ignorance on all general topics, and the humility born of that ignorance, gave to his manners a deference which was more gratifying to most ladies than brilliant loquacity would have been. He even helped little Alice to study a Sunday-school lesson, and the experience was so entirely new to him, that he became more deeply interested than the little learner herself. He went to church on Sunday, and was probably the most attentive listener the rather prosy old pastor had.

Of course he bathed--everybody did. A stout rope was stretched from a post on the shore to a buoy in deep water where it was anchored, and back and forth on this rope capered every day twenty or thirty hideously dressed but very happy people, among whom might always be seen Mr.

Putchett with a child on his shoulder.

One day the waves seemed to viciously break near the shore, and the bathers all followed the rope out to where there were swells instead of breakers. Mr. Putchett was there, of course, with little Alice. He seemed perfectly enamored of the water, and delighted in venturing as far to the sea as the rope would allow, and there ride on the swells, and go through all other ridiculously happy antics peculiar to ocean-lovers who cannot swim.

Suddenly Mr. Putchett's hand seemed to receive a shock, and he felt himself sinking lower than usual, while above the noise of the surf and the confusion of voices he heard some one roar:

"The rope has broken--scramble ashore!"

[Illustration: HE THREW UP HIS HAND AS A SIGNAL THAT THE LINE SHOULD BE DRAWN IN.]

The startled man pulled frantically at the piece of rope in his hand, but found to his horror that it offered no assistance; it was evident that the break was between him and the shore. He kicked and paddled rapidly, but seemed to make no headway, and while Alice, realizing the danger, commenced to cry piteously, Mr. Putchett plainly saw on the shore the child's mother in an apparent frenzy of excitement and terror.

The few men present--mostly boarding-house keepers and also ex-sailors and fishermen--hastened with a piece of the broken rope to drag down a fishing-boat which lay on the sand beyond reach of the tide. Meanwhile a boy found a fishing-line, to the end of which a stone was fastened and thrown toward the imperiled couple.

Mr. Putchett snatched at the line and caught it, and in an instant half a dozen women pulled upon it, only to have it break almost inside Mr.

Putchett's hands. Again it was thrown, and again the frightened broker caught it. This time he wound it about Alice's arm, put the end into her hand, kissed her forehead, said, "Good-by, little angel, God bless you,"

and threw up his hand as a signal that the line should be drawn in. In less than a minute little Alice was in her mother's arms, but when the line was ready to be thrown again, Mr. Putchett was not visible.

By this time the boat was at the water's edge, and four men--two of whom were familiar with rowing--sat at the oars, while two of the old fishermen stood by to launch the boat at the proper instant. Suddenly they shot it into the water, but the clumsy dip of an oar turned it broadside to the wave, and in an instant it was thrown, waterlogged, upon the beach. Several precious moments were spent in righting the boat and bailing out the water, after which the boat was safely launched, the fishermen sprang to the oars, and in a moment or two were abreast the buoy.

Mr. Putchett was not to be seen--even had he reached the buoy it could not have supported him, for it was but a small stick of wood. One of the boarders--he who had swamped the boat--dived several times, and finally there came to the surface a confused mass of humanity which separated into the forms of the diver and the broker.

A few strokes of the oars beached the boat, and old "Captain" Redding, who had spent his Winters at a government life-saving station, picked up Mr. Putchett, carried him up to the dry sand, laid him face downward, raised his head a little, and shouted:

"Somebody stand between him and the sun so's to shade his head! Slap his hands, one man to each hand. Scrape up some of that hot, dry sand, and pile it on his feet and legs. Everybody else stand off and give him air."

The captain's orders were promptly obeyed, and there the women and children, some of them weeping, and all of them pale and silent, stood in a group in front of the bathing-house and looked up.

"Somebody run to the hotel for brandy," shouted the captain.

"Here's brandy," said a strange voice, "and I've got a hundred dollars for you if you bring him to life."

Every one looked at the speaker, and seemed rather to dislike what they saw. He was a smart-looking man, but his face seemed very cold and forbidding; he stood apart, with arms folded, and seemed regardless of the looks fastened upon him. Finally Mrs. Blough, one of the most successful and irrepressible gossips in the neighborhood, approached him and asked him if he was a relative of Mr. Putchett's.

"No, ma'am," replied the man, with unmoved countenance. "I'm an officer with a warrant for his arrest, on suspicion of receiving stolen goods.

I've searched his traps at the hotel and boarding-house this morning, but can't find what I'm looking for. It's been traced to him, though--has he shown any of you ladies a large diamond?"

"No," said Mrs. Blough, quite tartly, "and none of us would have believed it of him, either."

"I suppose not," said the officer, his face softening a little. "I've seen plenty of such cases before, though. Besides, it isn't my first call on Putchett--not by several."

Mrs. Blough walked indignantly away, but, true to her nature, she quickly repeated her news to her neighbors.

"He's coming to!" shouted the captain, turning Mr. Putchett on his back and attempting to provoke respiration. The officer was by his side in a moment. Mr. Putchett's eyes had closed naturally, the captain said, and his lips had moved. Suddenly the stranger laid a hand on the collar of the insensible man, and disclosed a cord about his neck.

"Captain," said the officer, in a voice very low, but hurried and trembling with excitement, "Putchett's had a very narrow escape, and I hate to trouble him, but I must do my duty. There's been a five thousand dollar diamond traced to him. He advanced money on it, knowing it was stolen. I've searched his property and can't find it, but I'll bet a thousand it's on that string around his neck--that's Putchett all over.

Now, you let me take it, and I'll let him alone; nobody else need know what's happened. He seems to have behaved himself here, judging by the good opinion folks have of him, and he deserves to have a chance which he won't get if I take him to jail."

The women had comprehended, from the look of the stranger and the captain, that something unusual was going on, and they had crowded nearer and nearer, until they heard the officer's last words.

"You're a dreadful, hateful man!" exclaimed little Alice.

The officer winced.

"Hush, daughter," said Alice's mother; then she said: "Let him take it, captain; it's too awful to think of a man's going right to prison from the gates of death."

The officer did not wait for further permission, but hastily opened the bathing-dress of the still insensible figure.