ve no family, I
am only old Margaret from the house near the trenches."

"Well, and what have you done down below?"

"I have done as good as nothing in the world! nothing whatever! It will
be mercy, indeed, if such as I am suffered to pass through this gate."

"And how did you leave the world?" inquired the critic, carelessly. He
must talk about something; it wearied him to stand there, waiting.

"Well, I can hardly tell how I left it; I have been sickly enough during
these last few years, and could not well bear to creep out of bed at all
during the cold weather. It has been a severe winter, but now that is
all past. For a few days, as your highness must know, the wind was quite
still, but it was bitterly cold; the ice lay over the water as far as
one could see. All the people in the town were out on the ice; there was
dancing, and music, and feasting, and sledge-racing, I fancy; I could
hear something of it all as I lay in my poor little chamber. And when it
was getting toward evening, the moon was up, but was not yet very
bright; I looked from my bed through the window, and I saw how there
rose up over the sea a strange white cloud; I lay and watched it,
watched the black dot in it, which grew bigger and bigger, and then I
knew what it foreboded; that sign is not often seen, but I am old and
experienced. I knew it, and I shivered with horror. Twice before in my
life have I seen that sign, and I knew that there would be a terrible
storm and a spring flood; it would burst over the poor things on the
ice, who were drinking and dancing and merry-making. Young and old, the
whole town was out on the ice; who was to warn them, if no one saw it,
or no one knew what I knew? I felt so terrified, I felt all alive, as I
had not felt for years! I got out of bed, forced the window open; I
could see the folk running and dancing over the ice; I could see the
gay-colored flags, I could hear the boys shout 'Hurra!' and the girls
and lads a-singing. All were so merry; and all the time the white cloud
with its black speck rose higher and higher! I screamed as loud as I
could; but no one heard me, I was too far off. Soon would the storm
break loose, the ice would break in pieces, and all that crowd would
sink and drown. Hear me they could not; get out to them I could not;
what was to be done? Then our Lord sent me a good thought; I could set
fire to my bed; better let my house be burned to the ground than that so
many should miserably