“Miss ’Lizabeth! —­ you’ll catch a Typhus, or an agur, or somethin’ dreadful, down there!  Don’t ye want to live no more in the world?”

Elizabeth sat up, and rested her face on her knees, feeling giddy and sick.

“Don’t ye feel bad?”

“Hush, Clam! —­”

“I’m sent after ye,” said Clam, —­ “I dursn’t hush.  Folks thinks it is time you was back in the house.”

“Hush! —­ I don’t care what folks think.”

“Not what nobody thinks?” said Clam.

“What do you mean!” said Elizabeth flashing round upon her.  “Go back into the house. —­ I will come when I am ready.”

“You’re ready now,” said Clam.  “Miss ’Lizabeth, ye ain’t fit for anything, for want of eatin’.  Come! —­ they want ye.”

“Not much,” —­ thought Elizabeth bitterly, —­ “if they left it to her to bring me in.”

“Are you sick, Miss ’Lizabeth?”

“No.”

“He’s come home,” Clam went on; —­ “and you never saw the things he has brought!  Him and me’s been puttin’ ’em up and down.  Lots o’ things.  Ain’t he a man!”

“‘Up and down!’” repeated Elizabeth.

“Egg-zackly,” —­ said Clam; —­ “Floor-spreads —­ what-d’ye-call’ems? —­ and bedsteads —­ and chairs.  He said if he’d know’d the house was all stripped, he’d never have fetched you up here.”

“Yes he would,” said Elizabeth.  “What do I care for a stripped house!” —­ “with a stripped heart,” her thought finished it.

“Well don’t you care for supper neither? —­ for that old thing is a fixin’ it,” said Clam.

“You must not call her names to me.”

“Ain’t she old?” said Clam.

“She is a very good old woman, I believe.”

“Ain’t you comin’ Miss ’Lizabeth?  They won’t sit down without you.”

“Who sent you out here?”

“Karen axed where you was; and Mrs. Nettley said she dursn’t go look for you; and Mr. Landholm said I was to come and bring you in.”

“He didn’t, Clam! —­”

“As likely as your head’s been in the moss there, he did, Miss ’Lizabeth.”

“Go yourself back into the house.  I’ll come when I am ready, and I am not ready yet.”

“He ha’n’t had nothin’ to eat to-day, I don’t believe,” said Clam, by way of a parting argument.  But Elizabeth let her go without seeming to hear her.

She sat with her hands clasped round her knees, looking down upon the water; her eyes slowly filling with proud and bitter tears.  Yet she saw and felt how coolly the lowering sunbeams were touching the river now; that evening’s sweet breath was beginning to freshen up among the hills; that the daintiest, lightest, cheeriest gilding was upon every mountain top, and wavelet, and pebble, and stem of a tree.  “Peace be to thee, fair nature, and thy scenes!” —­ and peace from them seems to come too.  But oh how to have it!  Elizabeth clasped her hands tight together and then wrung them mutely.  “O mountains —­ O river —­ O birds!” —­ she thought, —­ “If I could but be as senseless as you —­ or as good for something!”