‘Thank Heaven it is over and the rabble gone,’ he said, when he became easier.  ’Go now and open all the doors and windows to let in the fresh air and out the smell they are sure to have left.  Ugh!  I get a whiff of it now.  Burn some of that aromatic paper; but open the hall windows first.’

Charles did as he was ordered, and the wind was soon sweeping through the wide hall, while Arthur’s rooms were filled with an odor like the sweet incense burned in the old cathedrals.

‘I am very giddy and faint,’ Arthur said, when Charles came back to him after his ventilating operation.  ’I have looked at the bright snow too long, and there are a thousand rings of fire dancing before my eyes, and in every ring I see a blue hood and veil, with waves of hair like Gretchen’s, when she was a child.  There is a redder tinge now on Gretchen’s hair, because she is older.  Wheel me out there, Charles, where I can see her.’

Charles obeyed, and moved the light bed-lounge into the library, where his master could feast his eyes upon the sweet face which knew no change, but which always, night and day, smiled upon him the same.  The picture had a soothing effect upon Arthur, and he gazed at it now until it began to fade away and lose itself in the blue hood and veil he had seen in the sleigh far down the avenue; and when, a few minutes later, Charles came in to look at him, he found him fast asleep.

Meantime the funeral train had reached the cemetery, where the snow was piled in great drifts, and where, in a corner of the Tracy lot, they buried the stranger, with no tear to hallow her grave, and no pang of regret save that she had ever come there, with the mystery and the doubt which must always cling to her memory.  Frank Tracy’s face was very pale and stern as he held little Jerry in his arms during the committal of the body to the grave, and then bade her take one last look at the box which held her mother.  But Jerry, who was growing cold and tired, began to cry, and so Frank took her back to the sleigh, which was driven to the cottage in the lane.  Here she felt at home, and drawing to the fire the low rocking chair she had appropriated to herself, was soon supremely happy devouring the ginger cookie which Mrs. Crawford had given her, and in trying to pronounce English words under Harold’s teaching.

While the children were thus employed, Mr. Tracy was divulging to Mrs. Crawford the object of his visit.  He could hardly explain, he said, why he was so deeply interested in the child, except it were that her mother had died on his premises and she seemed to be thrown upon his care.

‘I cannot see her go to the poor-house,’ he continued, with a trembling in his voice which made Mrs. Crawford wonder a little, as she had never credited him with much sympathy for anything outside his own family.  ’I cannot see her go to the poor-house, and I cannot well take her into my family, as we have three children of our own.  But I have made up my mind to care for her, and I have come to ask if, for a compensation, you will keep her here?’