!" he said.

She looked at him closely. He radiated health and good cheer. His tanned
cheeks were flushed red with exercise, and the hair on his temples was
damp.

"You have been breaking the rules," he said. "It is the law that I am
to do the work until you are well and strong again. Why did you tire
yourself?"

"I am so perfectly useless! I see so many things that I would enjoy
doing. Oh you can do everything else, make me well! Make me strong!"

"How can I, when you won't do as I tell you?"

"I will! Indeed I will!"

"Then no more attempts to stand over dishes and clean big floors. You
mustn't overwork yourself at anything. The instant you feel in the least
tired you must lie down and rest."

"But Man! I'm tired every minute, with a dead, dull ache, and I don't
feel as if I ever would be rested again in all the world."

The Harvester took one of her hands, felt its fevered palm, fluttering
wrist pulse, and noticed that the brilliant red of her lips had extended
to spots on her cheeks. He formed his resolution.

"Can't work on that bridge any more until I drive in for some big
nails," he said. "Do you mind being left alone for an hour?"

"Not at all, if Bel will stay with me. I'll lie in the swing."

"All right!" answered the Harvester. "I'll help you out and to get
settled. Is there anything you want from town?"

"No, not a thing!"

"Oh but you are modest!" cried the Harvester. "I can sit here and name
fifty things I want for you."

"Oh but you are extravagant!" imitated the Girl. "Please, please, Man,
don't! Can't you see I have so much now I don't know what to do with it?
Sometimes I almost forget the ache, just lying and looking at all the
wonderful riches that have come to me so suddenly. I can't believe they
won't vanish as they came. By the hour in the night I look at my lovely
room, and I just fight my eyes to keep them from closing for fear
they'll open in that stifling garret to the heat of day and work I have
not strength to do. I know yet all this will prove to be a dream and a
wilder one than yours."

The face of the Harvester was very anxious.

"Please to remember my dream came true," he said, "and much sooner than
I had the least hope that it would. I'm wide awake or I couldn't be
building bridges; and you are real, if I know flesh and blood when I
touch it."

"If I were well, strong, and attractive, I could understand," she said.
"Then I could work in the house, at the drawings, h