ame and went, fetching slow
supplies of strength and refreshment. The sun quitted its
overhead position and dipped towards Wut-a-qut-o, behind the
high brow of which, in summer-time, it used to hide itself. A
slant ray found an opening in the thick tree-tops, and shone
full upon Elizabeth's face; but it failed to rouse her; and it
soon went up higher and touched a little song sparrow that was
twittering in a cedar tree close by. Then the shadows of the
trees fell long over the grass towards the rocks on the east.

Elizabeth was awakened at last by a familiar adjuration.

"Miss 'Lizabeth! -- you'll catch a Typhus, or an agur, or
somethin' dreadful, down there! Don't ye want to live no more
in the world?"

Elizabeth sat up, and rested her face on her knees, feeling
giddy and sick.

"Don't ye feel bad?"

"Hush, Clam! --"

"I'm sent after ye," said Clam, -- "I dursn't hush. Folks
thinks it is time you was back in the house."

"Hush! -- I don't care what folks think."

"Not what _nobody_ thinks?" said Clam.

"What do you mean!" said Elizabeth flashing round upon her.
"Go back into the house. -- I will come when I am ready."

"You're ready now," said Clam. "Miss 'Lizabeth, ye ain't fit
for anything, for want of eatin'. Come! -- they want ye."

"Not much," -- thought Elizabeth bitterly, -- "if they left it
to her to bring me in."

"Are you sick, Miss 'Lizabeth?"

"No."

"He's come home," Clam went on; -- "and you never saw the
things he has brought! Him and me's been puttin' 'em up and
down. Lots o' things. Ain't he a man!"

"'Up and down!'" repeated Elizabeth.

"Egg-zackly," -- said Clam; -- "Floor-spreads -- what-d'ye-
call'ems? -- and bedsteads -- and chairs. He said if he'd know'd
the house was all stripped, he'd never have fetched you up
here."

"Yes he would," said Elizabeth. "What do I care for a stripped
house!" -- "with a stripped heart," her thought finished it.

"Well don't you care for supper neither? -- for that old thing
is a fixin' it," said Clam.

"You must not call her names to me."

"Ain't she old?" said Clam.

"She is a very good old woman, I believe."

"Ain't you comin' Miss 'Lizabeth? They won't sit down without
you."

"Who sent you out here?"

"Karen axed where you was; and Mrs. Nettley said she dursn't
go look for you; and Mr. Landholm said I was to come and bring
you in."

"He didn't, Clam! --"

"As likely as your head's been in the moss there, he did, Miss
'Liza