clock in the morning the fever began to subside
again, and the poor patient awoke. She was perfectly reasonable but
greatly depressed, not so much over her own condition as on Prime's
account. Again she sought to make him take the purely extraneous view,
and when that failed she talked quite calmly about the possibilities.

"I have had so little sickness that I hardly know whether this is really
serious or not," she said. "But if I shouldn't--if anything should
happen to me, I hope you won't--you won't have to bury me in the river."

"For Heaven's sake, don't talk that way!" he burst out. "You're not
going to die! You _mustn't_ die!"

"I am sure I don't want to," she returned. "Especially just now, when I
was beginning to learn how to live. May I have a drink of water?"

He went to the brook and got it for her, raging inwardly at the thought
that he could not even offer her a drink out of a vessel that wouldn't
taste tinny. When her thirst was quenched she went on half musingly.

"I am glad there isn't any one to be so very sorry, Donald. I know it
must be fine to have a family and to be surrounded by all kinds of love
and affection; but those things carry terrible penalties. Did you ever
think of that?"

"I hadn't," he confessed. "I've been a sort of lonesome one, myself."

"The penalties work both ways," she went on. "It breaks your heart to
have to leave the loved ones, and it breaks theirs to have you go. I
suppose the girls in the school will be sorry; they all seem to like me
pretty well, even if I am a 'cross old maid,' as one of them once called
me to my face."

"I can't imagine you cross; and as to your being old, why you're nothing
but a kid, Lucetta--just a poor little sick kiddy. And, goodness knows,
you've had enough to knock you out and to make you think all sorts of
grubby thoughts. You mustn't; you are going to get well again, and we'll
march along together the same as ever. Or perhaps the sheriff will find
us, after all. I've kindled a big fire down on the river-bank so that he
won't have any excuse for overlooking us. Day before yesterday I would
have tramped twenty miles to dodge him, but to-night I'd welcome him
with open arms."

"We were foolish to try to run away," she said. "And that was my fault,
too. The--the next time you are kidnapped, you must be careful not to
let yourself be tied to a petticoat, Cousin Donald. They are always in
the way."

"If I hadn't been tied to a petticoat th