"I 'm glad you 're sorry. You see," she explained artlessly, "I like you so much!"

I clasped the little hand very tightly. Was there any shadow of what a day might bring forth resting on me then?

"But you are coming again, you know. If - if I should not see you then, you would not forget me?"

"What a fancy, Mira! I shall see you many, many times again. And I shall not forget, Mira."

She smiled faintly. Then she drew a little closer to me and laid her fair young head upon my shoulder. "You will not forget me?" She was almost sobbing.

"My dearest Mira!"

She suddenly lifted up her face and kissed me. "Good night, my dear, kind friend!"

The little figure stood a moment in the doorway, looking back at me - then vanished.

For a long time I could not sleep that night. It rained in torrents and the wind blew fiercely. The old house creaked and trembled; the branches swept the roof as though the visible garments of the storm were fluttering by. After a while, however, the wind died down; the violence of the storm suddenly abated; and by and by there was a glimmer of moonlight in the eastern sky. Looking at this, I fell asleep.

When I awoke the waning moon was shining. I raised myself in bed and looked out. The sea was still plunging heavily, throwing up the long spray in drops of glittering silver, and the thunder of the waves still resounded along the shore. Just as I fell back in bed, I thought I heard a noise, like the opening and shutting of a door. I listened intently; I went to the window and looked out. Mere imagination! Yet I partially dressed myself, with a half-defined intention of going down stairs to look.

Merciful heaven! what was it I saw as I glanced again at the window? Only a little white-robed figure walking with outstretched arms along the pier, over those surging waves where a single misstep was death. For a moment I was paralyzed, incapable. Then I leapt forward - down the stairs - out into the night! If I could but reach her before . . . I could only complete the thought with a shudder!

She was now at the very end of the pier. I saw by her motions that she was still asleep, still utterly unconscious of the fearful danger. Despite my utmost speed, I was still several hundred feet away. I heard a sound of flying footsteps behind me. I did not look around. I saw only . . . Only a white arm lifted, a white figure fall . . . It was too late! The receding tide bore her swiftly away. I saw for a moment a golden head lifted from the waters, and heard a cry above the noise of the surf. In my despair I sprang forward to the edge of the pier, intending I know not what - perhaps to spring into the sea, where no such swimmer as I could have lived. But a firm hand held me back.

"Stop!" cried the old skipper. "You cannot save her!"

"The boats! the boats!"

"The float has broken loose, an' the boats are gone - an' it 's too late! O my God!"

Then the old man broke down and cried like a child. I strained my eyes a moment to catch a gleam of white upon the waves. Too late, too late! I stooped down to pick something from the slippery floor of the pier, just as it had fluttered down and fallen a moment since. A piece of blue ribbon that she had worn in her hair!

All this happened two years ago. But tonight, as I hear again the waves upon the beach, I cannot drive the thoughts of that time from my mind. And I hold a bit of blue ribbon in my fingers; and, as I look, I cannot keep back the tears. "If I should not see you then, you would not forget me?" I have not forgotten, Mira!