m coming.
She cried bitterly all the while she sorted the skins.

But that night when Lyndall had blown her candle out, and half turned
round to sleep, the door of Em's bedroom opened.

"I want to say good night to you, Lyndall," she said, coming to the
bedside and kneeling down.

"I thought you were asleep," Lyndall replied.

"Yes, I have been asleep; but I had such a vivid dream," she said,
holding the other's hands, "and that woke me. I never had so vivid a
dream before.

"It seemed I was a little girl again, and I came somewhere into a large
room. On a bed in the corner there was something lying dressed in white,
and its little eyes were shut, and its little face was like wax. I
thought it was a doll, and I ran forward to take it; but some one held
up her finger and said: 'Hush! it is a little dead baby.' And I said:
'Oh, I must go and call Lyndall, that she may look at it also.'

"And they put their faces close down to my ear and whispered: 'It is
Lyndall's baby.'

"And I said: 'She cannot be grown up yet; she is only a little girl!
Where is she?' And I went to look for you, but I could not find you.

"And when I came to some people who were dressed in black, I asked them
where you were, and they looked down at their black clothes, and shook
their heads, and said nothing; and I could not find you anywhere. And
then I awoke.

"Lyndall," she said, putting her face down upon the hands she held, "it
made me think about that time when we were little girls and used to play
together, when I loved you better than anything else in the world. It
isn't any one's fault that they love you; they can't help it. And it
isn't your fault; you don't make them love you. I know it."

"Thank you, dear," Lyndall said. "It is nice to be loved, but it would
be better to be good."

Then they wished good night, and Em went back to her room. Long after
Lyndall lay in the dark thinking, thinking, thinking; and as she turned
round wearily to sleep she muttered:

"There are some wiser in their sleeping than in their waking."

Chapter 2.IX. Lyndall's Stranger.

A fire is burning in the unused hearth of the cabin. The fuel blazes
up, and lights the black rafters, and warms the faded red lions on the
quilt, and fills the little room with a glow of warmth and light made
brighter by contrast, for outside the night is chill and misty.

Before the open fireplace sits a stranger, his tall, slight figure
reposing in the broken armc