"Oh for a lodge in the vast wilderness, The boundless contiguity of shade!" A fortnight had now passed, and Catharine still suffered so much from pain and fever, that they were unable to continue their wanderings; all that Hector and his cousin could do, was to carry her to the bower by the lake, where she reclined whilst they caught fish.

The painful longing to regain their lost home had lost nothing of its intensity; and often would the poor sufferer start from her bed of leaves and boughs, to wring her hands and weep, and call in piteous tones upon that dear father and mother, who would have given worlds had they been at their command, to have heard but one accent of her beloved voice, to have felt one loving pressure from that fevered hand.

Hope, the consoler, hovered over the path of the young wanderers, long after she had ceased to whisper comfort to the desolate hearts of the mournful parents.
Of all that suffered by this sad calamity, no one was more to be pitied than Louis Perron: deeply did the poor boy lament the thoughtless folly which had involved his cousin Catharine in so terrible a misfortune.

"If Kate had not been with me," he would say, "we should not have been lost; for Hector is so cautious and so careful, he would not have left the cattle-path; but we were so heedless, we thought only of flowers and insects, of birds, and such trifles, and paid no heed to our way." Louis Perron, such is life.

The young press gaily onward, gathering the flowers, and following the gay butterflies that attract them in the form of pleasure and amusement; they forget the grave counsels of the thoughtful, till they find the path they have followed is beset with briers and thorns; and a thousand painful difficulties that were unseen, unexpected, overwhelm and bring them to a sad sense of their own folly; and perhaps the punishment of their errors does not fall upon themselves alone, but upon the innocent, who have unknowingly been made participators in their fault.
By the kindest and tenderest attention to all her comforts, Louis endeavoured to alleviate his cousin's sufferings, and soften her regrets; nay, he would often speak cheerfully and even gaily to her, when his own heart was heavy, and his eyes ready to overflow with tears.
"If it were not for our dear parents and the dear children at home," he would say, "we might spend our time most happily upon these charming plains; it is much more delightful here than in the dark thick woods; see how brightly the sunbeams come down and gladden the ground, and cover the earth with fruit and flowers.