g been left behind when old Berthold lay down in
the ditch at the road-side. He had sung his last song, and could go no
further. He could only wait for the chariot of God--for the
white-winged angels to come silently over the white snow, and carry him
Home.

"The Lord will not forget me, though I am the last left," he said to
himself. "His blessings are not mere empty words. `Glory to God in the
highest!'" And Berthold slept.

"Rudolph!" The word was breathed softly, eagerly, by some moving thing
closely wrapped up, in the dense darkness of the field outside
Dorchester. There was no answer.

"Rudolph!" came eagerly again.

The speaker, who was intently listening, fancied she heard the faintest
possible sound. Quickly, quietly, flitting from one point to another,
feeling with her hands on the ground, under the bushes, by the walls,
she went, till her outstretched hands touched something round and soft,
and not quite so chillingly cold as every thing else seemed to be that
night.

"Rudolph! art thou here?"

"Yes, it's me," said the faint childish voice. "Where am I?--and who
are you?"

"Drink," was the answer; and a bottle of warm broth was held to the
boy's blue lips. Then, when he had drunk, he was raised from the
ground, clasped close to a woman's warm breast, and a thick fur mantle
was hastily wrapped round them both.

"Who are you?" repeated the child. "And where--where's Mother?"

"I am an old friend, my little child. Hast thou ever heard the name of
Countess?"

"Yes," murmured the child feebly. He could not remember yet how or
where he had heard it; he only knew that it was not strange to him.

"That is well. Glory be to the Blessed that I have found thee in time
to save thee!"

They were speeding back now into the lighted town--not lighted, indeed,
by out-door lamps, but by many an open door and uncovered window, and
the lanterns of passengers going up or down the street. Countess
carried the child to a stone house--only Jews built stone houses in
towns at that day--and into a ground-floor room, where she laid him down
on a white couch beside the fire. There were two men in the room--both
old, and with long white beards.

"Countess! what hast thou there?" sternly asked one of the men.

"Father Jacob!--a babe of the Goyim!" exclaimed the other.

"Hush!" said Countess in a whisper, as she bent over the boy. "The life
is barely in him. May the Blessed (to whom be praise!) help me