warmed her hands with his own, strove to speak
cheering words. But teeth were chattering, and her frail form was
quivering as with the ague.

A great wave of pity and love overwhelmed the cripple. He peeled off
his coat, beneath which were but the thinnest rags. He wrapped it
around her, saying:

"There, there! this will help you keep warm. I really do not need
it--I--I-am-not-c-c-cold!"

His own teeth were chattering now, and his pinched features were
purple.

The blind girl touched his icy arm, half exposed by his ragged shirt,
as she rose to sing for the charity of those who attended mass.

"No, no, Pierre," she cried, removing the coat from her shoulders, "I
will not let you freeze. Oh, how selfish I am to permit you to suffer,
who have been so kind to me!"

Rejecting his entreaties, she made him put it on again, hiding her own
suffering.

"Hearken! there sounds the organ for the recessional!" she continued.
"Soon the people will be coming out. I will sing the same songs that
my sister Henriette and I used to sing. Perhaps some one will
recognize the melody, and lead me back to her!"

A beautifully majestic, ermined figure stepped graciously out of the
church, as La Frochard rejoined Louise and began whining: "Charity! In
the name of God, Charity!" whilst the girl's voice lifted up in an old
plaintive melody.

The lady was the Countess de Linieres, returning from her devotions.

The song evoked memories of a bitter past and of a long lost daughter
snatched from her in infancy. Bending over poor Louise, she asked: "My
child, can you not see me?"

"No, Madame, I am blind," was the low, sad answer.

[Illustration: MARQUIS DE PRAILLE PLYING HIS ART WITH THE LADIES.]

A strange sympathy stirred in the Countess for this girl. There seemed
to be some hidden link between them, the nature of which baffled her.
She felt the impulse to protect and cherish--was it the voice of
Mother Love obscurely speaking?

"Alas!" said Louise. "Blindness is not the worst of my misfortunes.
I--I--"

La Frochard administered a terrible pinch that pulled Louise away,
then "mothered" her cutely. "We are starving, my beautiful lady," she
whined, "and the poor girl is out of her head. What is that you say?
_Not my daughter?_ Yes, indeed she is--the precious--and the youngest
of seven. Charity, charity! In the name of God, charity!" she
sniffled.

Reluctantly Countess de Linieres stifled the impulse to mother this
kindred and