Can the youth be censured, if, with a fluttering heart, he took extra pains with his personal appearance before leaving the good farmer’s home that evening?  When at last he stepped forth, in full dress, swinging his light cane, you would have had to hunt a long way to find a handsomer fellow than he.

And yet, with all his delightful anticipation, was mingled a feeling of dread.  He disliked meeting Catherwood, for between them a great gulf yawned and something unpleasant was certain to occur.  Jennie had witnessed his insulting offer of a reward to him for what he had done, and must have appreciated the style in which it was repulsed.  She would show her feelings most decisively before the evening was over.

Besides that, he dreaded hearing the family renew their expressions of thankfulness.  Tom had unquestionably performed a brave act, but no more so than hundreds of others that were continually being done every day—­some of them entitled to far more credit than was his.

But the fact that he was about to spend an evening in the company of Miss Jennie herself, outweighed all these slight objections.  Conscious, too, of her feeling toward him, he could not help viewing the hours just before him with a delightful flutter of anticipation.

The first pleasant disappointment which came to Tom, after reaching the fine residence and receiving the cordial welcome of the family, was the discovery that G. Field Catherwood was not present, and would not form one of the little party.  That lifted a load of apprehension from his shoulders.

Inasmuch as it had to come, Tom took the thanks of the parents like a hero.  He listened with a respectful smile, blushed under the compliments, and blushed still more when Jennie with a straightforward, earnest look said,—­

“Mr. Gordon may say it was not much, but it saved my life, and I shall never, NEVER forget it.  If Mr. Catherwood had shown a hundredth part of his courage”—­

“There, there, daughter,” protested her father, as they seated themselves at the table, “a truce to all that; let us leave him out of the conversation.”

“And, if you please, drop the whole thing,” added Tom, who began to feel uncomfortable under it all.

“Since it will be more agreeable to you, we will do so,” was the hearty remark of the head of the family, as all began “discussing,” as the expression goes, the feast before them.  “I will say, however, that Jennie did meet with one experience, in which her rescuer showed possibly more pluck than Mr. Gordon to-day.”

The guest looked inquiringly at his host.

“She seems to be destined to be concerned in unpleasant adventures.”

“Yes; I hope this is the last of them.  What I refer to happened some five or six years ago,—­possibly more than that.  At any rate, she was a small girl, crossing the ferry at New York with her mother, when in the crowd and crush, by some means which I never could understand, she fell overboard.  The river was full of floating ice, and she would have been drowned but for the heroism of a boy, who sprang in after her, and, at the risk of his own life, kept her afloat until both could be drawn on board.”