ught, but it couldn't help me out
of the scrape. I dared not sit still, lest a sun-stroke should be
added, and there was no resource but to hop or crawl down the rugged
path, in the hope of finding a forked sapling from which I could
extemporize a crutch. With endless pain and trouble I reached a thicket,
and was feebly working on a branch with my penknife, when the sound of a
heavy footstep surprised me.

A brown harvest-hand, in straw hat and shirtsleeves, presently appeared.
He grinned when he saw me, and the thick snub of his nose would have
seemed like a sneer at any other time.

"Are you the gentleman that got hurt?" he asked. "Is it pretty tolerable
bad?"

"Who said I was hurt?" I cried in astonishment.

"One of your town-women fro them hotel--I reckon she was. I was binding
oats, in the field over the ridge; but I haven't lost no time in comin'
here."

While I was stupidly staring at this announcement, he whipped out a big
clasp knife, and in a few minutes fashioned me a practicable crutch.
Then, taking me by the other arm, he set me in motion toward the
village.

Grateful as I was for the man's help, he aggravated me by his ignorance.
When I asked if he knew the lady, he answered: "It's more'n likely _you_
know her better." But where did she come from? Down from the hill, he
guessed, but it might ha' been up the road. How did she look? was she
old or young? what was the color of her eyes? of her hair? There, now, I
was too much for him. When a woman kept one o' them speckled veils over
her face, turned her head away and held her parasol between, how were
you to know her from Adam? I declare to you, I couldn't arrive at one
positive particular. Even when he affirmed that she was tall, he added,
the next instant: "Now I come to think on it, she stepped mighty quick;
so I guess she must ha' been short."

By the time we reached the hotel, I was in a state of fever; opiates and
lotions had their will of me for the rest of the day. I was glad to
escape the worry of questions, and the conventional sympathy expressed
in inflections of the voice which are meant to soothe, and only
exasperate. The next morning, as I lay upon my sofa, restful, patient,
and properly cheerful, the waiter entered with a bouquet of wild
flowers.

"Who sent them?" I asked.

"I found them outside your door, sir. Maybe there's a card; yes, here's
a bit o' paper."

I opened the twisted slip he handed me, and read: "From your dell--a