.

"Oh, don't!" said the other. "It chokes me to be bundled up so tight."
She shrugged the shawl down to her shoulders with a pretty petulance.
"If my chest's protected, that's all that's necessary." But she made no
motion to drape the outline which her neatly-fitted dress displayed, and
she did not move from her place, or look up at her anxious friend.

"Oh, but don't sit here, Louise," the latter pleaded, lingering near
her. "I was wrong to let you sit down at all after you had got heated."

"Well, Grace, I had to," said she who was called Louise. "I was so tired
out. I'm not going to take more cold. I can always tell when I am. I'll
put on the shawl in half a minute; or else I'll go in."

"I'm sure there's nothing to keep me out. That's the worst of these
lonely places: my mind preys upon itself. That's what Dr. Nixon always
said: he said it was no use in air so long as my mind preyed upon
itself. He said that I ought to divert my mind all I could, and keep
it from preying upon itself; that it was worth all the medicine in the
world."

"That's perfectly true."

"Then you ought n't to keep reminding me all the time that I'm sick.
That's what starts my mind to preying upon itself; and when it gets
going once I can't stop it. I ought to treat myself just like a well
person; that's what the doctor said."

The other stood looking at the speaker in frowning perplexity. She was a
serious-faced girl, and now when she frowned her black brows met sternly
above her gray eyes. But she controlled any impulse she had to severity,
and asked gently, "Shall I send Bella to you?"

"Oh, no! I can't make society out of a child the whole time. I'll just
sit here till the barge comes in. I suppose it will be as empty as a
gourd, as usual." She added, with a sick and weary negligence, "I don't
even know where Bella is. She's run off, somewhere."

"It's quite time she should be looked up, for tea. I'll wander out that
way and look for her." She indicated the wilderness generally.

"Thanks," said Louise. She now gratefully drew her shawl up over her
shoulders, and faced about on the bench so as to command an easy view
of the arriving barge. The other met it on her way to the place in the
woods where the children usually played, and found it as empty as her
friend had foreboded. But the driver stopped his horses, and leaned out
of the side of the wagon with a little package in his hand. He read the
superscription, and then glanced