"Yes, Davy," she said, her voice falling, her lips pursed, her brows
drawn down. "I'm not able t' make it out, at all. I'm feelin'--so
wonderful--queer."
"Is you, dear?"
"Davy Roth," she averred, with a wag of the head so earnest that strands
of flaxen hair fell over her eyes, and she had to brush them back again,
"I never felt so queer in all my life afore!"
"I'm dreadful worried about you, Bessie."
"Hut! as for that," said she, brightly, "I'm not thinkin' I'm goin' t'
_die_, Davy."
"Sure, you never can tell about sickness," I sagely observed.
"Oh, no!" said she. "I isn't got that--kind o'--sickness."
"Well," I insisted, triumphantly, "you're wonderful shy o' eatin' pork."
She shuddered.
"I wished I knowed what you had," I exclaimed impatiently.
"I wished you did," she agreed, frankly, if somewhat faintly. "For,
then, Davy, you'd give me a potion t' cure me."
She drew back the curtain--for the hundredth time, I vow--and peered
towards South Tickle.
"What you lookin' for?" I asked.
"I was thinkin', Davy," she said, still gazing through the window, "that
Skipper Zach Tupper might be comin' in from the Last Chance grounds with
a fish for breakfast."
The Last Chance grounds? 'Twas ignorance beyond belief! "Bessie," I
said, with heat, "is you gone mad? Doesn't you know that no man in his
seven senses would fish the Last Chance grounds in a light southerly
wind? Why----"
"Well," she interrupted, with a pretty pout, "you knows so well as me
that Zach Tupper haven't _got_ his seven senses."
"Bessie!"
She peeked towards South Tickle again; and then--what a wonder-worker
the divine malady is!--she leaned eagerly forward, her sewing falling
unheeded to the floor; and her soft breast rose and fell to a rush of
sweet emotion, and her lips parted in delicious wonderment, and the
blood came back to her cheeks, and her dimples were no longer pathetic,
but eloquent of sweetness and innocence, and her eyes turned moist and
brilliant, glowing with the glory of womanhood first recognized, tender
and pure. Ah, my sister--lovely in person but lovelier far in heart and
mind--adorably innocent--troubled and destined to infinitely deeper
distress before the end--brave and true and hopeful through all the
chequered course of love! You had not known, dear heart, but then
discovered, all in a heavenly flash, what sickness you suffered of.
"Davy!" she whispered.
"Ay, dear?"
"I'm knowin'--now--what ails me."
I sat gazing at her in love and great awe. "'Tis not a wickedness,
Bessie," I declared.
"No, no!"
"'Tis not that. No, no! I knows 'tis not a sin."
"'Tis a holy thing," she said, turning, her eyes wide and solemn.
"A holy thing?"
"Ay--holy!"
I chanced to look out of the window. "Ecod!" I cried. "The Wreck Cove
skiff is in with Doctor Luke!"
Unfeeling, like all lads--in love with things seen--I ran out.
* * * * *
The doctor came ashore at the wharf in a state of wild elation. He made
a rush for me, caught me up, called to the crew of the skiff to come to
the house for tea--then shouldered me, against my laughing protest, and
started up the path.
"I'm back, safe and sound," cried he. "Davy, I have been to Wreck Cove
and back."
"An' you're wonderful happy," cried I, from the uncertain situation of
his shoulder.
"Happy? That's the word, Davy. I'm happy! And why?"
"Tell me."
"I've done a good deed. I've saved a man's right hand. I've done a good
deed for once," he repeated, between his teeth, "by God!"
There was something contagious in all this; and (I say it by way of
apology) I was ever the lad to catch at a rousing phrase.
"A good deed!" I exclaimed. "By God, you'll do----"
He thrashed me soundly on the spot.