Peggy has not been in bed for three nights, and an immense lassitude has fallen upon her. It is not that she is conscious of feeling sleepy; but her head is like a lump of lead, and her hands are ice-cold. She would be all right if she could get into the open air for five minutes. A greedy longing to drink in great draughts of the fresh wind that she can hear outside frolicking so gaily, yet gently too, with the tree-tops, lays hold of her; and, since Prue still sleeps heavily, she gives up her place by the bedside to Sarah, and walks drearily out into the garden. It is only two days since she had been last in it; but it seems to her as if years had rolled by since she had last trodden that sward, seen Jacob digging, and watched the birds pecking at the sunflower-seeds, and the wasps pushing their way through the netting into the heart of the peaches. It appears to her a phantasmal garden, with an atmosphere of brilliance and joyousness that may have their home in that realm where Thomas the Rhymer lived; but can have no relationship to her bitter realities. But when she reaches the seat under the Judas-tree, the kingdom of Thomas the Rhymer is gone, and reality is here in its stead. As she looks at it, her hands clench themselves, and a tide of rage and misery surges up in her heart. 'You have killed her!' she says out loud; 'killed her as much as if you had cut her poor throat! When she is dead, I will tell you so!' She walks on quickly; rapid motion may make her burden easier to bear. But, alas! her domain is small; and no sooner has she left Prue and the Judas-tree behind, than the hawthorn bower and Talbot face her. The creamy foam of flowers that had sent its little pungent petals, shaped like tiny sea-shells, floating down upon their two happy heads, has changed to lustreless red berries. 'They are not more changed than I!' she says; and so sinks, helplessly sobbing, upon the rustic bench, her cheek pressed against the gnarled trunk. 'They are all the same!--all the same!' she moans. If it were not so, would she be lying with her head achingly propped against this rough bark? Would not it have been resting on her love's breast? Would not he have been telling her that Prue will get well? She has no one now to tell her that Prue will get well; and when she tells herself so, it does not sound true. The tears drip from under her tired lids. One moment she is here, with aching body and smarting soul; the next she is away--how far, who shall say? Away, at ease; all her sorrows sponged out, for God has sent her His lovely angel--sleep.