was Silas Marner while this strange visitor had come to his
hearth? He was in the cottage, but he did not see the child. Since he
had lost his money he had contracted the habit of opening his door, and
looking out from time to time, as if he thought that his money might,
somehow, be coming back to him.

That morning he had been told by some of his neighbours that it was New
Year's Eve, and that he must sit up and hear the old year rung out, and
the new rung in, because that was good luck, and might bring his money
back again. Perhaps this friendly Raveloe way of jesting had helped to
throw Silas into a more than usually excited state. Certainly he opened
his door again and again that night, and the last time, just as he put
out his hand to close it, the invisible wand of catalepsy arrested him,
and there he stood like a graven image, powerless to resist either the
good or evil that might enter.

When Marner's sensibility returned he was unaware of the break in his
consciousness, and only noticed that he was chilled and faint.

Turning towards the hearth it seemed to his blurred vision as if there
was a heap of gold on the floor; but instead of hard coin his fingers
encountered soft, warm curls. In utter amazement, Silas fell on his
knees to examine the marvel: it was a sleeping child, a round, fair
thing, with soft, yellow rings all over its head. Could this be the
little sister come back to him in a dream--his little sister whom he had
carried about in his arms for a year before she died? That was the first
thought. _Was_ it a dream? It was very much like his little sister. How
and when had the child come in without his knowledge?

But there was a cry on the hearth; the child had awakened, and Marner
stooped to lift it on to his knee. He had plenty to do through the next
hour. The porridge, sweetened with some dry brown sugar, stopped the
cries of the little one for "mammy." Then it occurred to Silas's dull
bachelor mind that the child wanted its wet boots off, and this having
been done, the wet boots suggested that the child had been walking on
the snow.

He made out the marks of the little feet in the snow, and, holding the
child in his arms, followed their track to the furze-bush. Then he
became aware that there was something more than the bush before
him--that there was a human body, half covered with the shifting snow.

With the child in his arms, Silas at once went for the doctor, who was
spending the eveni