She followed.  He made straight for the boat, clambered into it, and held out his hand to help her in.  Then he caught up the little boat-hook, and pushed away from the shore:  there was a great white flower floating a few yards off, and that was the little fellow’s goal.  But, alas! no sooner had Rosamond caught sight of it, huge and glowing as a harvest moon, than she felt a great desire to have it herself.  The boy, however, was in the bows of the boat, and caught it first.  It had a long stem, reaching down to the bottom of the water, and for a moment he tugged at it in vain, but at last it gave way so suddenly, that he tumbled back with the flower into the bottom of the boat.  Then Rosamond, almost wild at the danger it was in as he struggled to rise, hurried to save it, but somehow between them it came in pieces, and all its petals of fretted silver were scattered about the boat.  When the boy got up, and saw the ruin his companion had occasioned, he burst into tears, and having the long stalk of the flower still in his hand, struck her with it across the face.  It did not hurt her much, for he was a very little fellow, but it was wet and slimy.  She tumbled rather than rushed at him, seized him in her arms, tore him from his frightened grasp, and flung him into the water.  His head struck on the boat as he fell, and he sank at once to the bottom, where he lay looking up at her with white face and open eyes.

The moment she saw the consequences of her deed she was filled with horrible dismay.  She tried hard to reach down to him through the water, but it was far deeper than it looked, and she could not.  Neither could she get her eyes to leave the white face:  its eyes fascinated and fixed hers; and there she lay leaning over the boat and staring at the death she had made.  But a voice crying, “Ally!  Ally!” shot to her heart, and springing to her feet she saw a lovely lady come running down the grass to the brink of the water with her hair flying about her head.

“Where is my Ally?” she shrieked.

But Rosamond could not answer, and only stared at the lady, as she had before stared at her drowned boy.

Then the lady caught sight of the dead thing at the bottom of the water, and rushed in, and, plunging down, struggled and groped until she reached it.  Then she rose and stood up with the dead body of her little son in her arms, his head hanging back, and the water streaming from him.

“See what you have made of him, Rosamond!” she said, holding the body out to her; “and this is your second trial, and also a failure.”

The dead child melted away from her arms, and there she stood, the wise woman, on her own hearth, while Rosamond found herself beside the little well on the floor of the cottage, with one arm wet up to the shoulder.  She threw herself on the heather-bed and wept from relief and vexation both.

The wise woman walked out of the cottage, shut the door, and left her alone.  Rosamond was sobbing, so that she did not hear her go.  When at length she looked up, and saw that the wise woman was gone, her misery returned afresh and tenfold, and she wept and wailed.  The hours passed, the shadows of evening began to fall, and the wise woman entered.