y; for they, indeed were so.

------------

THE STORY OF A MOTHER

A mother sat there with her little child. She was so downcast, so
afraid that it should die! It was so pale, the small eyes had closed
themselves, and it drew its breath so softly, now and then, with a
deep respiration, as if it sighed; and the mother looked still more
sorrowfully on the little creature.

Then a knocking was heard at the door, and in came a poor old, man
wrapped up as in a large horse-cloth, for it warms one, and he needed
it, as it was the cold winter season! Every thing out of doors was
covered with ice and snow, and the wind blew so that it cut the face.

As the old man trembled with cold, and the little child slept a
moment, the mother went and poured some ale into a pot and set it on
the stove, that it might be warm for him; the old man sat and rocked
the cradle, and the mother sat down on a chair close by him, and
looked at her little sick child that drew its breath so deep, and
raised its little hand.

"Do you not think that I shall save him?" said she, "_Our Lord_ will
not take him from me!"

And the old man,--it was Death himself,--he nodded so strangely, it
could just as well signify yes as no. And the mother looked down in
her lap, and the tears ran down over her cheeks; her head became so
heavy--she had not closed her eyes for three days and nights; and now
she slept, but only for a minute, when she started up and trembled
with cold: "What is that?" said she, and looked on all sides; but the
old man was gone, and her little child was gone--he had taken it with
him; and the old clock in the corner burred, and burred, the great
leaden weight ran down to the floor, bump! and then the clock also
stood still.

But the poor mother ran out of the house and cried aloud for her
child.

Out there, in the midst of the snow, there sat a woman in long, black
clothes; and she said, "Death has been in thy chamber, and I saw him
hasten away with thy little child; he goes faster than the wind, and
he never brings back what he takes!"

"Oh, only tell me which way he went!" said the mother: "Tell me the
way, and I shall find him!"

"I know it!" said the woman in the black clothes, "but before I tell
it, thou must first sing for me all the songs thou hast sung for thy
child!--I am fond of them; I have heard them before; I am Night; I saw
thy tears whilst thou sang'st them!"

"I will sing them all, all!" said the mother; "b