slowly back, Lois gathered her infinite dread of the morrow, when she
too, as well as Lois, was to be led out to die, in face of all that
infuriated crowd. Lois sought in her own mind for some source of
comfort for the old woman, who shook like one in the shaking palsy at
the dread of death--and such a death.

When all was quiet through the prison, in the deep dead midnight, the
gaoler outside the door heard Lois telling, as if to a young child, the
marvellous and sorrowful story of one who died on the cross for us and
for our sakes. As long as she spoke, the Indian woman's terror seemed
lulled; but the instant she paused, for weariness, Nattee cried out
afresh, as if some wild beast were following her close through the
dense forests in which she had dwelt in her youth. And then Lois went
on, saying all the blessed words she could remember, and comforting the
helpless Indian woman with the sense of the presence of a Heavenly
Friend. And in comforting her, Lois was comforted; in strengthening
her, Lois was strengthened.

The morning came, and the summons to come forth and die came. They who
entered the cell found Lois asleep, her face resting on the slumbering
old woman, whose head she still held in her lap. She did not seem
clearly to recognize where she was, when she awakened; the 'silly' look
had returned to her wan face; all she appeared to know was, that
somehow or another, through some peril or another, she had to protect
the poor Indian woman. She smiled faintly when she saw the bright light
of the April day; and put her arm round Nattee, and tried to keep the
Indian quiet with hushing, soothing words of broken meaning, and holy
fragments of the Psalms. Nattee tightened her hold upon Lois as they
drew near the gallows, and the outrageous crowd below began to hoot and
yell. Lois redoubled her efforts to calm and encourage Nattee,
apparently unconscious that any of the opprobrium, the hootings, the
stones, the mud, was directed towards her herself. But when they took
Nattee from her arms, and led her out to suffer first, Lois seemed all
at once to recover her sense of the present terror. She gazed wildly
around, stretched out her arms as if to some person in the distance,
who was yet visible to her, and cried out once with a voice that
thrilled through all who heard it, 'Mother!' Directly afterwards, the
body of Lois the Witch swung in the air, and every one stood, with
hushed breath, with a sudden wonder, like a