de at her, crying, 'There she goes! Stop! Stop,
Betty Higden!' and melted away as they came close; be these things left
untold. Faring on and hiding, hiding and faring on, the poor harmless
creature, as though she were a Murderess and the whole country were up
after her, wore out the day, and gained the night.

'Water-meadows, or such like,' she had sometimes murmured, on the day's
pilgrimage, when she had raised her head and taken any note of the real
objects about her. There now arose in the darkness, a great building,
full of lighted windows. Smoke was issuing from a high chimney in
the rear of it, and there was the sound of a water-wheel at the side.
Between her and the building, lay a piece of water, in which the lighted
windows were reflected, and on its nearest margin was a plantation of
trees. 'I humbly thank the Power and the Glory,' said Betty Higden,
holding up her withered hands, 'that I have come to my journey's end!'

She crept among the trees to the trunk of a tree whence she could see,
beyond some intervening trees and branches, the lighted windows, both in
their reality and their reflection in the water. She placed her orderly
little basket at her side, and sank upon the ground, supporting herself
against the tree. It brought to her mind the foot of the Cross, and
she committed herself to Him who died upon it. Her strength held out to
enable her to arrange the letter in her breast, so as that it could
be seen that she had a paper there. It had held out for this, and it
departed when this was done.

'I am safe here,' was her last benumbed thought. 'When I am found dead
at the foot of the Cross, it will be by some of my own sort; some of
the working people who work among the lights yonder. I cannot see the
lighted windows now, but they are there. I am thankful for all!'

The darkness gone, and a face bending down.

'It cannot be the boofer lady?'

'I don't understand what you say. Let me wet your lips again with this
brandy. I have been away to fetch it. Did you think that I was long
gone?'

It is as the face of a woman, shaded by a quantity of rich dark hair.
It is the earnest face of a woman who is young and handsome. But all is
over with me on earth, and this must be an Angel.

'Have I been long dead?'

'I don't understand what you say. Let me wet your lips again. I hurried
all I could, and brought no one back with me, lest you should die of the
shock of strangers.'

'Am I not dead?'

'