word and every gesture.

My dear, sweet mother lifted her at last into the
easy-chair and made her lie there while she dipped some
hot water from her boiler and filled a large basin in her
sink. Then she led the pretty creature to it, and washed
from her arms, hands, and face the blood that had
hardened upon them, and looked carefully to find what her
wounds were. None of them were deep, though there
were ugly scratches on her beautiful arms; they were cut
by glass, as I guessed then, and as we learned from her
afterward. My mother was wholly prepared for all such
surgery as was needed here; she put on two bandages where
she thought they were needed, she plastered up the other
scratches with court-plaster, and then, as if the girl
understood her, she said to her, "And now, my dear child,
you must come to bed; there is no danger for you more."

The poor girl had grown somewhat reassured in the
comfortable little kitchen, but her terror seemed to come
back at any sign of removal; she started to her feet,
almost as if she were a wild creature. But I would defy
any one to be afraid of my dear mother, or indeed to
refuse to do what she bade, when she smiled so in her
inviting way and put out her hand; and so the girl went
with her, bowing to me, or dropping a sort of courtesy in
her foreign fashion, as she went out of the door, and I
was left to see what damage had been done to my castle by
the savages, as I called them.