came next, with Mr. Perrowne a little behind.  Miss Du Plessis and Mr. Wilkinson had not six quarts between them; and, when Marjorie saw the colonel’s little pail only half full, she exclaimed:  “O horrows!” and said it was a lasting disgrace.  But Mrs. Du Plessis smiled sweetly with her empurpled lips, and the colonel did not mind the disgrace a particle.  They all went home very merry and full of innocent jocularity.

“Cecile,” said the dominie, “I trust you will excuse the adjective, but I should dearly love to hear Corry’s jolly laugh just now.  Poor fellow, I think I could almost bear a pun.”

The audacious Mr. Perrowne overheard the last words, and, with great exuberance of feeling, propounded a conundrum.

“Mr. Wilkinson, why is a pun of our friend Coristine’s like your sling?  D’ye give it up?  Because there’s now arm in it now.  Ha! ha!”

They had only been a few hours away, but, when they returned to Bridesdale, it did not require clever eyes to see that a great change had taken place.  The people were in the house, even the children, but they were all very quiet.  Neither the doctor nor the Squire was visible, and instinctively the berry-pickers feared the worst.  Mrs. Carruthers told them that excitement had been too much for the enfeebled patient.  Happily, he was not strong enough to be delirious, but he seemed sinking, and had fallen into unconsciousness, only muttering little incoherences in his attenuated voice.  Doctor Halbert hoped much from a strong constitution, but work and worry had reduced its vitality before the dreadful drain came on the life blood.  Soon, he came down stairs with the Squire, both looking very solemn.  “Let me go to my friend, Doctor,” pleaded Wilkinson, and many other offers of service were made, but the doctor shook his head.  “Miss Marjorie is there and will not leave him,” he answered; “and, if she cannot pull him through, nobody else can.  When she wants help, she will summon you.”  Then, turning to Mr. Errol, he said:  “I will go with you now, and see to that poor woman at the post office.”  The minister took the good doctor’s arm, and they went away dinnerless to attend to the wants of Matilda Nagle, suddenly smitten down with fever while on the way to obey the imperious infelt summons of the unseen Rawdon.  Mr. Newberry was with her, having been driven over by that strange mixture of humanity, Yankee Pawkins, and Mrs. Tibbs was acting as the soul of kindness.  The woman’s case was a remarkable combination of natural and mesmeric causes, but presented no reason for serious apprehension.  The doctor prescribed, and Pawkins drove off at breakneck speed to get the prescription filled by the medical student at his dispensary.  Then, he and the minister returned to the sobered and melancholy company at Bridesdale.  “Resting, but hardly breathing,” was the bulletin that greeted them, when they enquired after the solitary battler for life in the upper chamber.  Yet he was not alone; one sad stricken woman’s heart was bound to that poor shadow of former vital wealth forever.