of all this, Gwenny?" I asked, as I slipped
about on the floor, for I could not stand there firmly with my great
snow-shoes on.

"Maning enough, and bad maning too," the Cornish girl made answer. "Us be
shut in here, and starving, and durstn't let anybody in upon us. I wish
thou wer't good to ate, young man: I could manage most of thee."

I was so frightened by her eyes, full of wolfish hunger, that I could
only say "Good God!" having never seen the like before. Then drew I
forth a large piece of bread, which I had brought in case of accidents,
and placed it in her hands. She leaped at it, as a starving dog leaps at
sight of his supper, and she set her teeth in it, and then withheld
it from her lips, with something very like an oath at her own vile
greediness; and then away round the corner with it, no doubt for her
young mistress. I meanwhile was occupied, to the best of my ability, in
taking my snow-shoes off, yet wondering much within myself why Lorna did
not come to me.

But presently I knew the cause, for Gwenny called me, and I ran, and
found my darling quite unable to say so much as, "John, how are you?"
Between the hunger and the cold, and the excitement of my coming, she
had fainted away, and lay back on a chair, as white as the snow around
us. In betwixt her delicate lips, Gwenny was thrusting with all her
strength the hard brown crust of the rye-bread, which she had snatched
from me so.

"Get water, or get snow," I said; "don't you know what fainting is, you
very stupid child?"

"Never heerd on it, in Cornwall," she answered, trusting still to the
bread; "be un the same as bleeding?"

"It will be directly, if you go on squeezing away with that crust so.
Eat a piece: I have got some more. Leave my darling now to me."

Hearing that I had some more, the starving girl could resist no longer,
but tore it in two, and had swallowed half before I had coaxed my Lorna
back to sense, and hope, and joy, and love.

"I never expected to see you again. I had made up my mind to die, John;
and to die without your knowing it."

As I repelled this fearful thought in a manner highly fortifying, the
tender hue flowed back again into her famished cheeks and lips, and a
softer brilliance glistened from the depth of her dark eyes. She gave me
one little shrunken hand, and I could not help a tear for it.

"After all, Mistress Lorna," I said, pretending to be gay, for a smile
might do her good; "you do not love me as Gwen