lla,--you must not lie here on the damp ground. Get
up,--it is almost night. What _will_ your mother say? what _will_ she
think has become of you?"

I started up, bewildered and alarmed, passing my hands dreamily over my
swollen eyelids. Heavy shadows hung over the woods. Night was indeed
approaching. I had fallen into a deep sleep, and knew it not.

It was Richard Clyde who awakened me. His schoolmaster called him Dick,
but I thought it sounded vulgar, and he was always Richard to me. A boy
of fifteen, the hardest student in the academy, and, next to my mother
and Peggy, the best friend I had in the world. I had no brother, and
many a time had he acted a brother's part, when I had needed a manly
champion. Yet my mother had enjoined on me such strict reserve in my
intercourse with the boy pupils, and my disposition was so shy, our
acquaintance had never approached familiarity.

"I did not mean to shake you so hard," said he, stepping back a few
paces as he spoke, "but I never knew any one sleep so like a log before.
I feared for a moment that you were dead."

"It would not be much matter if I were," I answered, hardly knowing what
I said, for a dull weight pressed on my brain, and despondency had
succeeded excitement.

"Oh, Gabriella! is it not wicked to say that?"

"If you had been treated as badly as I have, you would feel like saying
it too."

"Yes!" he exclaimed, energetically, "you have been treated badly,
shamefully, and I told the master so to his face."

"You! You did not, Richard. You only thought so. You would not have told
him so for all the world."

"But I did, though! As soon as you ran out of school, it seemed as if he
made but one step to the door, and his face looked as black as night. I
thought if he overtook you, he might,--I did not know what he would do,
he was so angry. I sat near the door, and I jumped right up and faced
him on the threshold. 'Don't, sir, don't! I cried; she is a little girl,
and you a great strong man.'

"'What is that to you, sirrah?' he exclaimed, and the forked lightning
ran out of his eye right down my backbone. It aches yet, Gabriella.

"'It is a great deal, Sir,' I answered, as bold as a lion. 'You have
treated her cruelly enough already. It would be cowardly to pursue
her.'"

"Oh, Richard! how dared you say that? Did he not strike you?"

"He lifted his hand; but instead of flinching, I made myself as tall as
I could, and looked at him right steadfastly. You