k, wistful eyes.

There were times too when Jessie was quite sure that Memory was
struggling back to its vacant throne.

"Who are you?" she would whisper, earnestly, gazing into Jessie's face.
"And what is your name? It seems as if I had heard it and known it in
some other world."

Jessie would laugh amusedly at this. Once, much to Jessie's surprise,
when she questioned her as to why she was sitting in the sunshine,
thinking so deeply upon some subject, Margaret Moore answered simply:

"I was thinking about love!"

There were times when Margaret Moore seemed rational enough; but her
past life was a blank to her. She always insisted that Jessie Bain's
face was the first she had ever seen in this world.

It was the first one which she had beheld when consciousness came to her
as she lay on her sick-bed; and to say that she fairly idolized Jessie
was but expressing it very mildly.

The day came when she proved that devotion with a heroism that people
never forgot. It happened in this way:

One cold, frosty morning early in January, in tidying up Petie's cage,
the door was accidently left open, and the little canary, who was
Jessie's especial pride, slipped from his cage and flew out at the open
door-way, into the bitter cold of the winter morn.

With a cry of terror, Jessie Bain sprung after her pet. Down the village
street he flew, making straight toward the river, Jessie following as
fast as her feet could carry her, wringing her hands and calling to him.
Margaret Moore followed in the rear. On the river's brink Jessie paused,
and, with tears in her eyes, watched her pet in his mad flight. By this
time Margaret Moore had caught up to her.

At that instant Jessie saw the bird whirl in mid-air, spread his yellow
wings, then fall headlong upon the ice that covered the river, and
Jessie sprang forward, and was soon making her way to where the canary
lay. But the ice was not strong enough to bear her. There was a crash, a
cry, and in an instant Jessie Bain had disappeared. The ice had given
way beneath her weight, and the dark waters had swallowed her.

For an instant Margaret Moore stood dazed; then, with a shriek of
terror, she flew over the ice and was kneeling at the spot where Jessie
had disappeared, watching for her to come to the surface.

Once, twice, the golden hair showed for an instant; but each time it
eluded the grasp of the girl who made such agonizing attempts to catch
it. The third and last time