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.