my father and mother ever--how can I
repay"--and her voice broke and faltered with emotion, and tears fell
from her wondrous eyes.

"Perhaps," said Bart, off his guard, "perhaps you may be willing to
forget the past!"

"The past--forget the past?"

"Pardon me, it was unfortunate! Let us go."

"Barton!"

"Not a word now," said Bart, gayly. "I am the doctor, you are terribly
shaken up, and not yourself. I shall not let you say a word of thanks.
Why, we are not out of the woods yet!"--this last laughingly. "When
you are all your old self, and in your pleasant home, everything of
this night and morning will come to you."

"What do you mean, Mr. Ridgeley?" a little coolly.

"Nothing," in a sad, low voice. They had gained the road. "See," said
he, "here is somebody's road, from some place to somewhere; we will
follow it up to the some place. There! I hear an axe. I hope he is
cutting wood; and there--you can see the smoke of his cabin.

'I knew by the smoke that so gracefully curled.'

Oh, I hope he will have a rousing fire."

Julia walked rapidly and silently by his side, hardly hearing his last
words; she was thinking why he would not permit her to thank him--and
that it would all be recalled in her home--finally, his meaning came
to her. He would seek and save her from death, and even from the
memory of an unconsidered word, which might possibly be misconstrued;
and she clung more closely to the arm which had borne her over the
flood.

"I am hurrying you, I fear."

"No, not a bit. Oh, now I can see the cabin; and there is the man,
right by the side of it."

"It must be Wilder's," said Bart. "He moved into the woods here
somewhere."

As they approached, the chopper stopped abruptly, and gazed on them
in blank wonder. The dishevelled girl, with hanging hair, and red
"wamus," and the wild, haggard-looking, coatless youth, with belt
and hatchet, were as strange apparitions, coming up out of the
interminable woods, as could well meet the gaze of a rustic
wood-chopper of an early morning.

"Can you give this young lady shelter and food?" asked Bart, gravely.

"I guess so," said the man; "been out all night?" and he hurried them
into a warm and cheerful room, bright with a blazing fire, where was a
comely, busy matron, who turned to them in speechless surprise.

"This is Judge Markham's daughter," said Bart, as Julia sank into a
chair, strongly inclined to break down completely; "she got lost, last
night