"Yes.--He has a good deal to do," she continued. If he could not resist playing with his misery, neither could she help exulting in her happiness, parading it for her own joy in spoken words; it made it more real. "Good deal to do? He didn't tell me about it; perhaps I could have helped him," Hollis went on awkwardly, but looking at her with all his heart in his eyes--his poor, hungry, unsatisfied old heart. "You _could_ be of use to us," said Eve, suddenly; ("Us!" thought Hollis.)--"the very greatest, Mr. Hollis. If you would go south with Judge Abercrombie and Mrs. Morrison it would be everything. They will probably go in a week or ten days, and Mrs. Mile accompanies them; but if you could go too, it would be much safer." "And you to stay in Port aux Pins with Paul," thought Hollis. "I don't grudge it to you, Evie, God knows I don't--may you be very happy, sweet one! But I shall have to get out of this all the same. I'm ashamed of myself, old fellow that I am, but I can't stand it, I can't! I shall have to clear out. I'll go west." Eve, meanwhile, was waiting for his reply. "Of course, Miss Bruce," he answered aloud, "should like nothing better than a little run down South. Why, the old judge and me, we'll make a regular spree of it!" And he slapped his leg in confirmation. Eve gave him a bright smile by way of thanks. But she was too much absorbed to talk long with anybody, and presently she left him, taking a path through the woods. In fifteen minutes her restlessness brought her back again. She stopped at the edge of the camp; Porley, near by, was making "houses"--that is, squares and pyramids of the little pebbles of the beach, which Master Jack demolished when completed, with the air of a conqueror. "Porley, go and ask the nurse how Mrs. Morrison is now;--whether she is more quiet." "Mis' Morrison, she's ebber so much weller to-day," volunteered Porley. "When she _ain't_ so quiet, Miss Bruce--droppin' off inter naps all de time--_den_ she's weller." "Do as I tell you," said Eve. The girl went off. "House," demanded Jack. Eve took him on her shoulder instead. "Sing to Jacky; poor, _poor_ Jacky!" said the child, gleefully. "Mis' Mile, she say Mis' Morrison done gone ter sleep dish yere minute," reported Porley, with a crestfallen air, returning. Eve's spirits rose. "Oh, Jack, naughty boy!" She laughed convulsively, lifting up her shoulder, as the child tried to insert one of his pebbles under her linen collar, selecting a particularly ticklish spot on her throat for the purpose.--"Do you want to go out on the lake?" Jack dropped his pebble; he was always wild with delight at the prospect of a voyage. Porley picked up his straw hat, and brought his little coat, in case the air should grow cool; in ten minutes they were afloat. Eve turned the canoe down the lake, rowing eastward.