ging up from the turf
as soon as she had sat down. "Tell me! I can hear you while I walk
about."

"Oh! but I can't shout; I can hardly speak I am so tired. Mr Farquhar
brought Leonard--"

"You've told me that before," said Jemima, sharply.

"Well! I don't know what else to tell. Somebody had been since
yesterday, and gathered nearly all the strawberries off the grey
rock. Jemima! Jemima!" said Elizabeth, faintly, "I am so dizzy--I
think I am ill."

The next minute the tired girl lay swooning on the grass. It was an
outlet for Jemima's fierce energy. With a strength she had never
again, and never had known before, she lifted up her fainting sister,
and bidding Mary run and clear the way, she carried her in through
the open garden-door, up the wide old-fashioned stairs, and laid her
on the bed in her own room, where the breeze from the window came
softly and pleasantly through the green shade of the vine-leaves and
jessamine.

"Give me the water. Run for mamma, Mary," said Jemima, as she
saw that the fainting-fit did not yield to the usual remedy of a
horizontal position and the water sprinkling.

"Dear! dear Lizzie!" said Jemima, kissing the pale, unconscious face.
"I think you loved me, darling."

The long walk on the hot day had been too much for the delicate
Elizabeth, who was fast outgrowing her strength. It was many days
before she regained any portion of her spirit and vigour. After
that fainting-fit, she lay listless and weary, without appetite or
interest, through the long sunny autumn weather, on the bed or on the
couch in Jemima's room, whither she had been carried at first. It was
a comfort to Mrs Bradshaw to be able at once to discover what it was
that had knocked up Elizabeth; she did not rest easily until she had
settled upon a cause for every ailment or illness in the family. It
was a stern consolation to Mr Bradshaw, during his time of anxiety
respecting his daughter, to be able to blame somebody. He could not,
like his wife, have taken comfort from an inanimate fact; he wanted
the satisfaction of feeling that some one had been in fault, or else
this never could have happened. Poor Ruth did not need his implied
reproaches. When she saw her gentle Elizabeth lying feeble and
languid, her heart blamed her for thoughtlessness so severely as to
make her take all Mr Bradshaw's words and hints as too light censure
for the careless way in which, to please her own child, she had
allowed her two pupils t