e did every few paces, ran round in front
of her, and looked up in her face, as much as to say, "Here I am,
mistress! shall I lick again?" If a dog could create, he would make
masters and mistresses. Gladly would she then have fondled him, but
feared the venture; for, it seemed, were she to stoop, she must fall
flat on the road, and never rise more.

Slowly the two went on, with motion scarce enough to keep the blood
moving in their veins. Had she not been, for all her late depression,
in fine health and strength, Letty could hardly have escaped death from
the cold of that night. For many months after, some portion of every
night she passed in dreaming over again this dreariest wandering; and
in her after life people would be puzzled to think why Mrs. Helmer
looked so angry when any one spoke as if the animals died outright.
But, although she never forgot this part of the terrible night, she
never dreamed of any rescue from it; memory could not join it on to the
next part, for again she lost consciousness, and could recall nothing
between feeling the dog once more licking her face and finding herself
in bed.

When Beenie opened her kitchen-door in the morning to let in the fresh
air, she found seated on the step, and leaning against the wall, what
she took first for a young woman asleep, and then for the dead body of
one; for, when she gave her a little shake, she fell sideways off the
door-step. Beenie's heart smote her; for during the last hours of her
morning's sleep she had been disturbed by the howling of a dog,
apparently in their own yard, but had paid no further attention to it
than that of repeated mental objurgation: there stood the offender,
looking up at her pitifully--ugly, disreputable, of breed unknown, one
of the _canaille!_ When the girl fell down, he darted at her, licked
her cold face for a moment, then stretching out a long, gaunt neck,
uttered from the depth of his hidebound frame the most melancholy
appeal, not to Beenie, at whom he would not even look again, but to the
open door. But, when Beenie, in whom, as in most of us, curiosity had
the start of service, stooped, and, peering more closely into the face
of the girl, recognized, though uncertainly, a known face, she too
uttered a kind of howl, and straightway raising Letty's head drew her
into the house. It is the mark of an imperfect humanity, that personal
knowledge should spur the sides of hospitable intent: what difference
does our knowin