unlatched by a careless new-comer, and as swiftly as his weak and tired
limbs would bear him sped over the snow in the bitter, black night. He
had only one thought,--to follow Nello. A human friend might have paused
for the pleasant meal, the cheery warmth, the cosey slumber; but that
was not the friendship of Patrasche. He remembered a bygone time, when
an old man and a little child had found him sick unto death in the
wayside ditch.

Snow had fallen freshly all the evening long; it was now nearly ten; the
trail of the boy's footsteps was almost obliterated. It took Patrasche
long to discover any scent. When at last he found it, it was lost again
quickly, and lost and recovered, and again lost and again recovered, a
hundred times or more.

The night was very wild. The lamps under the wayside crosses were blown
out; the roads were sheets of ice; the impenetrable darkness hid every
trace of habitations; there was no living thing abroad. All the cattle
were housed, and in all the huts and homesteads men and women rejoiced
and feasted. There was only Patrasche out in the cruel cold,--old and
famished and full of pain, but with the strength and the patience of a
great love to sustain him in his search.

The trail of Nello's steps, faint and obscure as it was under the new
snow, went straightly along the accustomed tracks into Antwerp. It was
past midnight when Patrasche traced it over the boundaries of the town
and into the narrow, tortuous, gloomy streets. It was all quite dark in
the town, save where some light gleamed ruddily through the crevices of
house-shutters, or some group went homeward with lanterns chanting
drinking-songs. The streets were all white with ice: the high walls and
roofs loomed black against them. There was scarce a sound save the riot