!' and he tried
to lift up her head, but she drew it away from him, and repeated the
piteous cry of 'Mah-nee, mah-nee!'

At last, however, as Harold continued to talk to her, the cries ceased,
and, cautiously lifting her head, she turned toward him a fat, chubby
face and a pair of soft, blue eyes in which the great tears were
standing. Then her lips began to quiver in a grieved kind of way, as if
the horror of the previous night had stamped itself upon her tender mind
and she were asking for sympathy.

'Mah-nee!' she said again, placing one hand on the cold, dead face, and
stretching the other toward Harold, who put out his arms to take her.

But something resisted all his efforts, and a closer inspection showed
him a long, old-fashioned carpet-bag, which enveloped her body from her
neck to her feet, and into which she had evidently been put to protect
her from the cold.

'Not a bad idea either,' Harold said, as he comprehended the situation;
'and your poor mother gave you the most of her cloak, too, and her
shawl,' he continued, as he saw how carefully the child had been
wrapped, while the mother, if it were her mother, had paid for her
unselfishness with her life.

'What is your name, little girl?' he asked.

The child, who had been staring at him while he talked as if he were a
lunatic, made no reply until he had her in his arms, when she, too,
began to talk in a half-frightened way. Then he looked at her as if she
were the lunatic, for never had he heard such speech as hers.

'I do believe you are a Dutchman,' he said, as he wrapped both shawl and
cloak around her and started for the door, which he kicked against some
time in order to make an opening wide enough to allow of his egress with
his burden.

When at last they emerged from the cold, dark room into the bright
sunshine, the child gave a great cry of delight, and the blue eyes
fairly danced with joy as they fell upon the dazzling snow. Then she put
both arms around Harold's neck, and nestling her face close to his,
kissed him as fondly as if she had known him all her life, while the boy
paid her back kiss after kiss as he proceeded slowly toward home.

The child was heavy, and the bag and shawl made such an unwieldy bundle
that his progress was very slow, and he stopped more than once to rest
and take breath, and as often as he stopped the blue eyes would look up
enquiringly at him with an expression which made his boyish heart beat
faster as he th