"Because I'm tired, tired!" sighed the girl, turning away her head. "I only need rest, and all I want is to be let alone."
"The fact is, you don't know what ails you or what you need; and you're not going to be let alone," remarked Clare, with the assumption of authority always so distasteful to her young sister-in-law.
The words, but especially the tone, brought the color to Nell's cheeks and an indignant light into her eyes.
She opened her lips to reply, but Clare had already left the room, and the next moment re-entered it, bringing Dr. Buell with her.
His remedies had no good effect. Nell drooped more and more. Major Lamar became extremely anxious and uneasy.
"I wish," he said to his wife again and again, "that Clendenin would come home. It is very unfortunate that he should be absent just now."
"Doesn't any body hear from him?" she asked, hearing the remark for perhaps the fiftieth time.
"I don't know. I'll go and ask Dale," he answered, taking up his hat and hurrying from the house.
He had not gone a hundred yards when he espied—welcome sight!—Kenneth himself walking briskly toward him.
They met with a hearty handshaking and words of cordial greeting.