for him."

Betty thought this an excellent joke, and laughed delightedly over it.

"If he is camping out, it is quite time I was back," answered Margaret,
trying to speak lightly. She took up her gloves. "Good-by, Aunt Betty;
you will write to me?"

"Yes, indeed, I will," said Betty, kissing her. "Poor dear, you're like
Mahomet's coffin, aren't you? suspended between heaven and--and the
other place. And I'm _so_ glad you've decided as you have, because you
will be _much_ easier in your mind, though of course, too, Mr. Winthrop
was _quite_ right of course, about being afraid for you in case you were
alone, for sometimes we _do_ have the most dreadful gusts, and the
pine-trees are blown down all _over_ the barrens and right across the
roads; but then, all the same, if you _hadn't_ decided, you would be
_so_ uncomfortable, like the old man and his son and the donkey, who
never got anywhere, you know, because they tried to please too many
people, or was it that they had to carry the donkey at last? at any
rate, certainly, there's no donkey _here_. Well, good-by, dear; I shall
be so _dreadfully_ anxious about you."

"I am quite sure"--this was called down the stairs after Margaret had
descended--"I'm quite sure, dear, that it will be _nothing_ but a rain."

A carriage was waiting at the lower door; Winthrop's man was to drive;
but the horses were not his; they were a pair Margaret had sent for.
Margaret took her place, and Winthrop followed her; Betty, who had now
hurried out to the balcony, waved her handkerchief in farewell as long
as she could see them.

Margaret had been at East Angels for nearly a month, called there by a
sudden illness which had attacked Mrs. Rutherford. It was not a
dangerous illness; but it was one that entailed a good deal of
suffering, and Margaret had been immediately summoned.

By this time everybody in Gracias knew how dependent "dear Katrina" was
in reality upon her niece, in spite of her own majestic statements to
the contrary. No one was surprised therefore, when, after the new
illness had declared itself, and Mrs. Rutherford had said, plaintively,
that she should think Margaret would feel that she _ought_ to be there,
Betty immediately sat down and wrote a note.

After two weeks of suffering, Mrs. Rutherford had begun to improve. She
had now almost attained her former comparatively comfortable condition,
and Margaret was returning to the house on the river.

The light carriage cro