Connie came around the corner of the parsonage, out the back walk beneath the maple.  Then she gave a gleeful scream.  Right before her lay a beautiful heavy rope.  Connie had been yearning for a good rope to make a swing.  Here it lay, at her very feet, plainly a gift of the gods.  She did not wait to see where the other end of the rope was.  She just grabbed what she saw before her, and started violently back around the house with it yelling, “Prudence!  Look at my rope!”

Prudence rushed around the parsonage.  The twins shrieked wildly, as there was a terrific tug and heave of the limb beside them, and then—­a crashing of branches and leaves.  Jerry was gone!

It did look horrible, from above as well as below.  But Jerry, when he felt the first light twinge as Connie lifted the rope, foresaw what was coming and was ready for it.  As he went down, he grabbed a firm hold on the branch on which he had stood, then he dropped to the next, and held again.  On the lowest limb he really clung for fifteen seconds, and took in his bearings.  Connie had dropped the rope when the twins screamed, so he had nothing more to fear from her.  He saw Prudence, white, with wild eyes, both arms stretched out toward him.

“O.  K., Prue,” he called, and then he dropped.  He landed on his feet, a little jolted, but none the worse for his fall.

He ran at once to Prudence.  “I’m all right,” he cried, really alarmed by the white horror in her face.  “Prudence!  Prudence!” Then her arms dropped, and with a brave but feeble smile, she swayed a little.  Jerry took her in his arms.  “Sweetheart!” he whispered.  “Little sweetheart!  Do—­do you love me so much, my dearest?”

Prudence raised her hands to his face, and looked intensely into his eyes, all the sweet loving soul of her shining in her own.  And Jerry kissed her.

The twins scrambled down from the maple, speechless and cold with terror,—­and saw Prudence and Jerry!  Then they saw Connie, staring at them with interest and amusement.

“I think we’d better go to bed, all three of us,” declared Lark sturdily.  And they set off heroically around the house.  But at the corner Carol turned.

“Take my advice and go into the woodshed,” she said, “for all the Averys are looking out of their windows.”

Prudence did not hear, but he drew her swiftly into the woodshed.  Now a woodshed is a hideously unromantic sort of place.  And there was nothing for Prudence to sit on, that Jerry might kneel at her feet.  So they dispensed with formalities, and he held her in his arms for a long time, and kissed her often, and whispered sweet meaningless words that thrilled her as she listened.  It may not have been comfortable, but it was evidently endurable, for it is a fact that they did not leave that woodshed for over an hour.  Then they betook themselves to the darkest corner of the side porch,—­and history repeated itself once more!