He smiled again. "Here is somebody else that wants resting, I
am afraid," said he, placing her gently on the log; and before
she had found anything to say, he went off again to his
machinery. Fleda sat looking at him, and trying to clear her
bosom of its thick breathing.

"What has brought you up here through the hot sun?" said he,
coming back after he had stopped the saw, and sitting down
beside her.

Fleda's lip moved nervously, and her eye shunned meeting his.
Softly pushing back the wet hair from his temples, she said —

"I had one of my fits of doing nothing at home — I didn't feel
very bright, and thought perhaps you didn't — so, on the
principle that two negatives make an affirmative —"

"I feel bright," said Hugh, gently.

Fleda's eye came down to his, which was steady and clear as
the reflection of the sky in Deepwater lake — and then hers
fell lower.

"Why don't you, dear Fleda?"

"I believe I am a little tired," Fleda said, trying, but in
vain, to command herself and look up — "and there are states
of body when anything almost is enough to depress one."

"And what depresses you now?" said he, very steadily and