g to lie on the ground, there?" she asked, with the
importance and authority of a woman who puts herself in charge of a sick
man, as a woman always must when there is such a man near her.

"I would be willing to be under it, such a day as this," he said. "But
I'll take the shawl, if that's what you mean. I thought it was here?"

"I'll get it for you," said Louise; and he let her go into the parlor
and bring it out to him. She laid, it in a narrow fold over his
shoulder; he thanked her carelessly, and she watched him sweep languidly
across the buttercupped and dandelioned grass of the meadow-land about
the house, to the dark shelter of the pine grove at the north. The sun
struck full upon the long levels of the boughs, and kindled their
needles to a glistening mass; underneath, the ground was red, and
through the warm-looking twilight of the sparse wood the gray canvas of
a tent showed; Matt often slept there in the summer, and so the place
was called the camp. There was a hammock between two of the trees, just
beyond the low stone wall, and Louise saw Maxwell get into it.

Matt came out on the piazza in his blue woollen shirt and overalls and
high boots, and his cork helmet topping all.

"You look like a cultivated cowboy that had gobbled an English tourist,
Matt," said his sister. "Have you got anything for me?"

Matt had some letters in his hands which the man had just brought up
from the post-office. "No; but there are two for Maxwell--"

"I will carry them to him, if you're busy. He's just gone over to the
camp."

"Well, do," said Matt. He gave them to her, and he asked, "How do you
think he is, this morning?"

"He must be pretty well; he's been writing ever since breakfast."

"I wish he hadn't," said Matt. "He ought really to be got away somewhere
out of the reach of newspapers. I'll see. Louise, how do you think a
girl like Sue Northwick would feel about an outright offer of help at
such a time as this?"

"How, help? It's very difficult to help people," said Louise, wisely.
"Especially when they're not able to help themselves. Poor Sue! I don't
know what she _will_ do. If Jack Wilmington--but he never really cared
for her, and now I don't believe she cares for him. No, it couldn't be."

"No; the idea of love would be sickening to her now."

Louise opened her eyes. "Why, I don't know what you mean, Matt. If she
still cared for him, I can't imagine any time when she would rather know
that he cared for h