said Wullie, eating slowly and looking at her.

She flushed and looked away from him.

"I have, Wullie, horrible thoughts. About getting old."

"So old, lassie--ye're nearly a woman now," he said gently.

"Wullie, I won't be a woman! I hate it! The doctor's been telling me
disgusting things about being a woman. And so has Jean. Why should they
be weak and get ill? Oh, I won't! I'll do as I like."

"Ye're too young tae understand yet," began Wullie.

"I'm not. I'm not too young to understand that I won't be weak--tied
down. The doctor said women were all weaker than men, and I thought
perhaps most women might be. But not me. And then--Wullie, I want to be
like a lion or a tiger, and kill things that get in the way, and--oh,
I'll hate being a human being with a body that gets in the way."

"My poor old carcass has always been in the way," said Wullie wistfully,
and she ran out of the hut, unable to bear the pity of that, right up on
Ben Grief. But before she reached the top she had to take off the tight
bandages, for she found she could scarcely breathe, much less climb in
them, and her shoes and stockings she hid under a bush until she came
back, for they crippled her feet.

For three days she did not bathe and undressed in the dark every night.
But after that the water called her insistently, and she went back to
it, swimming in a deliberately unconscious way, as though she had