caused by her knowledge that her darling one was suffering. The true
mother lives for her children, and their joys and sorrows are hers.

Whenever the wind rustled among the branches around them she shuddered
and instinctively drew her own shawl closer about her shoulder; she
would have given a year's toil could she have wrapped the thick woolen
garment about the tiny form of her loved one, who never seemed so dear
to her as then.

"Gustav," she whispered, twitching his elbow, "I want to speak one word
to you."

"Speak out; they cannot understand us," he answered, alluding to the
fact that they were using their own language.

"Yes, but I don't want Nick to know what I say."

The husband thereupon fell back beside her, and in a tremulous voice she
said:

"Do you remember when Nellie was three years old?"

"Of course I remember further back than that: why do you ask?"

"When she had the fever and was getting well?"

"Yes, I cannot forget it; poor girl, her cheeks were so hot I could
almost light a match by them; but, thank God, she got over it."

"You remember, Gustav, how cross she was and how hard it was to please