'I tell you, granny, if you bottle a fellow up too tight he'll split,'
said Tom Loker. 'But about Eliza--tell them to dress her up some way so
as to alter her. We have sent a description of what she looks like to
the town where the boats start from. She will be caught yet if she
doesn't dress up differently.'
'I thank thee, Thomas Loker,' replied the old lady with her usual
calmness. 'We will attend to that. Thank thee.' Then she went to tell
George and Eliza what Tom Loker had said.
They were indeed very grateful to him, and very glad that they had not
left him, as his own friends had done, to die by the roadside.
So next day Eliza cut off all her beautiful black hair, and dressed
herself like a boy.
'Don't I make a pretty young fellow?' she said to George, laughing and
blushing at the same time.
'You always will be pretty,' said George gravely, 'do what you will.'
'What makes you so sober?' asked Eliza, kneeling on one knee, and laying
her hand on his. 'We are within twenty-four hours of Canada, they say.
Only a day and a night on the lake, and then--oh, then!'
'O Eliza,' said George, holding her fast, 'that is just it. To be so
near liberty, to be almost in sight of it--and then if we lost it. O
Eliza, I should die.'
'Don't fear,' said Eliza hopefully. 'The good Lord would not have
brought us so far if He didn't mean to save us.
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