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.
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