es.
And how beautiful his eyes had grown! As uncloudedly clear, as
innocently sweet, as those of an infant awaking from a long and
untroubled slumber. Raising himself, unassisted, to his elbow, he began
gazing about him, though with too dreamy a look for any clear perception
of his surroundings. "I am going," said he, talking as dreamily as he
looked, and beginning with the falsehood which he had sent back to his
mother as he was running away from home--"I am going to our best spring,
down there in the edge of the woods, to fetch dear Meg of the Hills a
good, cool drink of water. Then I am going to grandpap's house with Nick
of the Woods. But where is the fence, and the trees--where are they? And
the bright sun? I am still asleep and only dreaming."

So concluding, he lay quietly down again, and closing his eyes, remained
perfectly still for some moments, as if to assure himself that he had
concluded aright and was really asleep. In a little while, however, he
recommenced his dreamy talk, which, with his eyes still closed, and
occasional intervals of sleep-like silence, he kept up for many minutes.
His words, to those who listened, seemed but the incoherent wandering of
a feverish fancy.

"They kiss me, embrace me--weep over me as though I were going to die. I
think they mean it for Sprigg; but Sprigg is dead already--passed away
into nothing. They have lost him and found me, though they do not seem
to know the difference yet. That is the way, I think; or why should they
keep on calling me for him? They shall never see their old Sprigg again.
Never! Never!" A sleep-like pause.

"Sprigg had a pair of red moccasins--long, long ago, when I was a
little, a very little boy. I think he had them; and I think he put them
on and wore them, far, far away, when he had been forbidden to do so.
Yes, I am sure of it now; for I remember telling him how wrong he was
doing, and that he ought not to think of such a thing. But he wouldn't
listen to me; he would have his own way. Whither he went, he never knew
to his dying day; for his eyes and thoughts were so bewitched by his
moccasins that he quite forgot everything else; and, so, soon got
completely lost. It was a wild and lonely place where Sprigg found
himself when he came to his senses. A great hill, whose top was in a sky
all burning and red with the light of the setting sun. Sprigg blamed the
moccasins for his mishap; was very angry at them--jerked them from his
feet and flung