they had caught the
day before proved an ample supply. The huckle-berries were ripening too,
and soon afforded them a never-failing source of food; there were also
an abundance of bilberries, the sweet rich berries of which proved a
great treat, besides being very nourishing.

CHAPTER III.

"Oh for a lodge in the vast wilderness,
The boundless contiguity of shade!"

A fortnight had now passed, and Catharine still suffered so much from
pain and fever, that they were unable to continue their wanderings; all
that Hector and his cousin could do, was to carry her to the bower
by the lake, where she reclined whilst they caught fish. The painful
longing to regain their lost home had lost nothing of its intensity; and
often would the poor sufferer start from her bed of leaves and boughs,
to wring her hands and weep, and call in piteous tones upon that dear
father and mother, who would have given worlds had they been at their
command, to have heard but one accent of her beloved voice, to have felt
one loving pressure from that fevered hand. Hope, the consoler, hovered
over the path of the young wanderers, long after she had ceased to
whisper comfort to the desolate hearts of the mournful parents.

Of all that suffered by this sad calamity, no one was more to be pitied
than Louis Perron: deeply did the poor boy lament the thoughtless folly
which had involved his cousin Catharine in so terrible a misfortune. "If
Kate had not been with me," he would say, "we should not have been lost;
for Hector is so cautious and so careful, he would not have left the
cattle-path; but we were so heedless, we thought only of flowers and
insects, of birds, and such trifles, and paid no heed to our way."
Louis Perron, such is life. The young press gaily onward, gathering the
flowers, and following the gay butterflies that attract them in the
form of pleasure and amusement; they forget the grave counsels of the
thoughtful, till they find the path they have followed is beset with
briers and thorns; and a thousand painful difficulties that were unseen,
unexpected, overwhelm and bring them to a sad sense of their own folly;
and perhaps the punishment of their errors does not fall upon
themselves alone, but upon the innocent, who have unknowingly been made
participators in their fault.

By the kindest and tenderest attention to all her comforts, Louis
endeavoured to alleviate his cousin's sufferings, and soften her
regrets; nay, he would