Roy was soon in the midst of an eager discussion about the best bait for trout; and was presently startled by a heavy splash over the bridge.  Looking up, to his amazement, he saw Dudley struggling in the water.

“Help, Roy, I’m drowning!”

Both boys were capital swimmers, but Roy saw that Dudley seemed incapable of keeping himself up, and in one second he threw off his jacket, and dived head foremost off the bridge to the rescue.  The current of the river was strong here, for a mill wheel was only a short distance off; and it was hard work to swim safely ashore.  Roy accomplished it successfully amidst the cheers of the admiring group on the bridge; and when once on dry ground again, neither of the boys seemed the worse for the wetting.  In the hubbub that ensued Dubley was not questioned as to the cause of the accident; but it appeared that his feet had got entangled in some string and netting that one of the boys had brought with him to the bridge, and it was this that had prevented him from swimming.

“It’s awfully nice that I had the chance of helping you,” said Roy, as the two boys were running home as fast as they could to change their wet clothes; “I didn’t hurt you in the water, did I?  I believe I gave a pretty good tug to your hair, I was awfully glad you hadn’t had your hair cut lately.”

“You’ve saved my life,” said Dudley, staring at Roy with a peculiar gravity; “if you hadn’t dashed over to me, I should have been sucked down by that old wheel, and should have been a dead man by this time.  You’ve done to-day what you were longing to do.”

“Yes, but I tell you I felt awfully squeamish when I saw you in the water and thought I might be too late.”

As they neared the house, Roy’s pace slackened.

“Go on, Dudley, and leave me, I can’t get on, I believe that horrid old asthma is coming on, I’ll follow slowly.”

“I’m not quite such a cad,” was Dudley’s retort, and then hoisting Roy up on his back, as if that mode of proceeding was quite a usual occurrence, he made his way into the house.

They crept up to their bedrooms and changed their wet clothes before they showed themselves to any one.  Then Dudley waxed eloquent for the occasion, and the story was told in drawing-room and servants’ hall, till every one was loud in their praises of the little rescuer.

“He looks too small to have done it,” said Miss Bertram, smiling; for though Roy was Dudley’s senior by two months, he was a good head shorter.

Roy got rather impatient under this adulation.

“Oh, shut up, Dudley, don’t be such an ass, as if I could have done anything else!”

An hour after, and Roy was sitting up in bed speechless and panting, with the bronchitis kettle in full play, and nurse trying vainly to battle with one of his worst bronchial attacks.

“I say “—­he gasped at last; “do you think—­I’m going to die—­this time?”