perish. So I kindled a light; I saw the red flame
mount up; I got out at the door, but then I fell down; I lay there, I
could not get up again. But the flames burst out through the window and
over the roof; they saw it down below, and they all ran as fast as they
could to help me; the poor old crone they believed would be burned;
there was not one who did not come to help me. I heard them come, and I
heard, too, such a rustling in the air, and then a thundering as of
heavy cannon-shots, for the spring-flood was loosening the ice, and it
all broke up. But the folk were all come off it to the trenches, where
the sparks were flying about me; I had them all safe. But I could not
bear the cold and the fright, and that is how I have come up here. Can
the gates of heaven be opened to such a poor old creature as I? I have
no house now at the trenches; where can I go, if they refuse me here?"

Then the gates opened, and the Angel bade poor Margaret enter. As she
passed the threshold, she dropped a blade of straw--straw from her
bed--that bed which she had set alight to save the people on the ice,
and lo! it had changed into gold! dazzling gold! yet flexible withal,
and twisting into various forms.

"Look, that was what yonder poor woman brought," said the Angel. "But
what dost thou bring? Truly, I know well that thou hast done nothing,
not even made bricks. It is a pity thou canst not go back again to fetch
at least one brick--not that it is good for anything when it is made,
no, but because anything, the very least, done with a good will, is
Something. But thou mayst not go back, and I can do nothing for thee."

Then poor Margaret pleaded for him thus: "His brother gave me all the
bricks and broken bits wherewith I built my poor little house--that was
a great kindness toward a poor old soul like me! May not all those bits
and fragments, put together, be reckoned as one brick for him? It will
be an act of mercy; he needs it, and this is the home of mercy."

"To thy brother, whom thou didst despise," said the Angel, "to him whose
calling, in respect of worldly honor, was the lowest, shalt thou owe
this mite of heavenly coin. Thou shalt not be sent away; thou shalt
have leave to stand here without, and think over thy manner of life
down below. But within thou canst not enter, until thou hast done
something that is good--Something!"

"I fancy I could have expressed that better," thought the critic; but he
did not say it aloud,