overed her. So long as she was able she had clasped her little girl
to her bosom, and thus died.

The infant had tried to suck the marble breast. Blind trust, inspired by
nature, for it seems that it is possible for a woman to suckle her child
even after her last sigh.

But the lips of the infant had been unable to find the breast, where the
drop of milk, stolen by death, had frozen, whilst under the snow the
child, more accustomed to the cradle than the tomb, had wailed.

The deserted child had heard the cry of the dying child.

He disinterred it.

He took it in his arms.

When she felt herself in his arms she ceased crying. The faces of the
two children touched each other, and the purple lips of the infant
sought the cheek of the boy, as it had been a breast. The little girl
had nearly reached the moment when the congealed blood stops the action
of the heart. Her mother had touched her with the chill of her own
death--a corpse communicates death; its numbness is infectious. Her
feet, hands, arms, knees, seemed paralyzed by cold. The boy felt the
terrible chill. He had on him a garment dry and warm--his pilot jacket.
He placed the infant on the breast of the corpse, took off his jacket,
wrapped the infant in it, took it up again in his arms, and now, almost
naked, under the blast of the north wind which covered him with eddies
of snow-flakes, carrying the infant, he pursued his journey.

The little one having succeeded in finding the boy's cheek, again
applied her lips to it, and, soothed by the warmth, she slept. First
kiss of those two souls in the darkness.

The mother lay there, her back to the snow, her face to the night; but
perhaps at the moment when the little boy stripped himself to clothe the
little girl, the mother saw him from the depths of infinity.

CHAPTER III.

A BURDEN MAKES A ROUGH ROAD ROUGHER.

It was little more than four hours since the hooker had sailed from the
creek of Portland, leaving the boy on the shore. During the long hours
since he had been deserted, and had been journeying onwards, he had met
but three persons of that human society into which he was, perchance,
about to enter--a man, the man on the hill; a woman, the woman in the
snow; and the little girl whom he was carrying in his arms.

He was exhausted by fatigue and hunger, yet advanced more resolutely
than ever, with less strength and an added burden. He was now almost
naked. The few rags which remained to hi