l talk as I do too."

"I hope she won't; because 'tis very bad to talk nonsense."

"Yes, child; it is nonsense, I suppose. Are you not nearly spent with
the heat?"

"Yes. But not so much as you be."

"How do you know?"

"Your face is white and wet, and your head is hanging-down-like."

"Ah, I am exhausted from inside."

"Why do you, every time you take a step, go like this?" The child in
speaking gave to his motion the jerk and limp of an invalid.

"Because I have a burden which is more than I can bear."

The little boy remained silently pondering, and they tottered on side
by side until more than a quarter of an hour had elapsed, when Mrs.
Yeobright, whose weakness plainly increased, said to him, "I must sit
down here to rest."

When she had seated herself he looked long in her face and said, "How
funny you draw your breath--like a lamb when you drive him till he's
nearly done for. Do you always draw your breath like that?"

"Not always." Her voice was now so low as to be scarcely above a
whisper.

"You will go to sleep there, I suppose, won't you? You have shut your
eyes already."

"No. I shall not sleep much till--another day, and then I hope to have
a long, long one--very long. Now can you tell me if Rimsmoor Pond is
dry this summer?"

"Rimsmoor Pond is, but Oker's Pool isn't, because he is deep, and is
never dry--'tis just over there."

"Is the water clear?"

"Yes, middling--except where the heath-croppers walk into it."

"Then, take this, and go as fast as you can, and dip me up the
clearest you can find. I am very faint."

She drew from the small willow reticule that she carried in her hand
an old-fashioned china teacup without a handle; it was one of half a
dozen of the same sort lying in the reticule, which she had preserved
ever since her childhood, and had brought with her today as a small
present for Clym and Eustacia.

The boy started on his errand, and soon came back with the water,
such as it was. Mrs. Yeobright attempted to drink, but it was so warm
as to give her nausea, and she threw it away. Afterwards she still
remained sitting, with her eyes closed.

The boy waited, played near her, caught several of the little brown
butterflies which abounded, and then said as he waited again, "I like
going on better than biding still. Will you soon start again?"

"I don't know."

"I wish I might go on by myself," he resumed, fearing, apparently,
that he was to be pressed into some unp