“Yis, sah, you does,” said Matthias.

Telling mother and Aunt Hildy what we were going out to find, we started.

It was a very cold day, and through our warm clothing the winds of March pierced the marrow of our bones.  We found the woman, who proved to be, as Matthias had said, nearly frozen.  Louis took her right in his arms to the nearest shelter, Mr. Goodwin’s, the brick-colored house, and his good, motherly wife had her put into the large west-room, where the spare bed was made so temptingly clean, and with such an airy feather mattress, that, light as she was, the poor girl sank into it almost out of sight.  Matthias brought wood and made a fire on the hearth, and Mrs. Goodwin, Louis and I worked hard for an hour chafing her purple limbs, her swelled feet and hands, and at last she turned her head uneasily, and murmured: 

“The baby’s dead—­she is dead and I am going to her.”

Then a few words of home and some pictures.

“Myself! myself!” she’d cry, “my picture; yes, my hair is beautiful; my golden curls, he said; and my baby’s hair; let me put it here.”

And she passed into a sleep from which it would seem she could never waken.  We sent Matthias back to tell mother, and say that we should both stay all night if necessary.  This girl could not be more than twenty, we thought.  Her fingers were small and tapering, and on her right hand she wore a ring set with several diamond stones.  Her dress was of silk, and her shawl fine but thin.  Her head covering had doubtless fallen off and then been carried by the wind, for we saw nothing of it.  She was a beautiful picture as she lay there, for the blood had started and her cheeks were flushed with fever, her lips parted, showing a set of teeth, small, white and regular.  Who could she be?  Where did she come from?  It was about an hour after she fell asleep that she stirred, wakened, and this time opened her eyes in which a conscious light was gathering.

“Where am I?  What is it?”

Mrs. Goodwin stepped near her, Louis retreated from the room, and I kept my seat by the hearth.

“Dead, dead, I was dying but I am not dead; do tell me,” she said, putting both her hands out to Mrs. Goodwin.

“You are sick, my child.  We found you in the road and took you in.  You had lost your way.”

“Oh! oh!” she murmured, “can I stay all night?”

“Oh, yes, stay a week or two, and get rested!”

“May I go to sleep again?  Who knows me here?” and again she fell asleep.  By this time Aunt Hildy appeared on the scene, and commanded me to go home and stay there.

“’Tain’t no place for you; I’ve brought my herbs to stay and doctor her.  You go home and help your mother.”  I obeyed, of course, and when I left, kissed the white forehead of the poor girl, and sealed it with a tear that fell.

She murmured:  “Yes, all for love,—­home, pictures, mother,—­all left for love, and the baby’s dead.  I’m going there.”