o, don't
get down into the water again, dear. I'll carry you. Put your arm
round my neck, and I'll carry you."

And the good-natured woman carried him up to the roof, and laid him down
on a bundle of bedding there, promising to bring him breakfast
presently. She threw an apron over his head, to cover it from the hot
sun, and bade him lie still, and not think of anything till she came.

"Only one thing," said Oliver. "Take particular care of the gravel in
the tub."

"Gravel!" exclaimed Ailwin. "The fowls eat gravel; but I don't see that
we can. However, you shall have your way, Oliver."

The tired boy was asleep in a moment. He knew nothing more till he felt
vexed at somebody's trying to wake him. It was Mildred. He heard her
say,--

"How very sound asleep he is! I can't make him stir. Here, Oliver,--
just eat this, and then you can go to sleep again directly."

He tried to rouse himself, and sat up; but his eyes were so dim, and the
light so dazzling, that he could not see, at first, what Mildred had in
her hands. It was one of her mother's best china plates,--one of the
set that was kept in a closet up-stairs; and upon it was a nice brown
toasted fish, steaming hot.

"Is that for me?" asked Oliver, rubbing his eyes.

"Yes, indeed, for who but you?" said Ailwin, whose smiling face popped
up from the stairs. "Who deserves it, if you do not, I should like to
know? It is not so good as I could have wished, though, Oliver. I
could not broil it, for want of butter and everything; and we have no
salt, you know. But, come! Eat it, such as it is. Come, begin!"

"But have you all got some too?" asked the hungry boy, as he eyed the
fish.

"Oh, yes,--George and all," said Mildred. "We ate ours first, because
you were so sound asleep, we did not like to wake you."

"How long have I been asleep?" asked Oliver, beginning heartily upon his
fish. "How could you get this nice fish? How busy you must have been
all this time that I have been asleep!"

"All this time!" exclaimed Mildred. "Why, you have been asleep only
half an hour; hardly so much. We have only just lighted the fire, and
cooked the fish, and fed Geordie, and put him to sleep, and got our own
breakfast;--and we were not long about that,--we were so very hungry!
That is all we have done since you went to sleep."

"It seems a great deal for half an hour," said Oliver. "How good this
fish is! Where did you get it?"

"I found it on the